Elephant Man (25 page)

Because Merrick’s medical needs were now slight, and they must talk of something, Treves drew him out to discuss the books he had read. He discovered that Merrick had gone through the whole of Shakespeare in an astonishingly short time.

“I like the sonnets best though,” he said one day. “I think poetry is so beautiful.”

That evening Treves went on a hunt through his bookshelves at home and discovered two volumes of poetry. They belonged to Anne, who offered them willingly enough when she knew whom they were for.

Treves made a point of mentioning that Anne had sent them when he handed them over the next day, knowing that any attention from a pretty woman charmed Merrick.

They read the poems together. Despite his thick speech Merrick had a natural gift for the feel of a verse, which would often lead him into its heart while Treves was still puzzling over its meaning.

That morning he returned several times to the same poem, as though sensing that it had a significance for him that it would only yield up with study.

Treves took up the refrain:

They were silent for a moment. Treves waited to see if Merrick wanted to read anything else, but he closed the book with a small sound that might have been a sigh. His eyes passed over the room and came to rest on the picture of the child sleeping. He gazed at it for a long time.

“I wish I could sleep like normal people,” he said quietly. Before Treves could think of a reply he turned
and looked at him levelly, “Mr. Treves, there is something I’ve been meaning to ask you for some time …” he seemed not to know how to go on.

“Yes, John,” Treves encouraged him gently.

“Can you cure me?”

Treves was taken back. It was the last question he had expected, and now he wondered why it had never occurred to him that John might wonder about this. It was so obvious to himself that the condition was incurable that he had forgotten that John knew nothing of such things.

Mingled with his surprise was a renewed sense of remorse. This is the result, said the little voice inside, of allowing him to forget that he is so unlike other people. He
has
now forgotten it, and he begins to hope with a cruel hope that will destroy him.

“No, John,” Treves said after a moment. “I can’t. I can care for you, but I can’t cure you.”

Merrick did not seem disturbed or disappointed by this answer. “I thought as much,” he said simply.

He got to his feet and moved to the window. Treves followed him with his eyes and saw how Merrick turned to face him. And then something happened which he was afterward never able to explain.

Merrick was standing gazing in his direction and it seemed to Treves that those features, which had never before been capable of expression, wore one now. It was a calm, knowing look, almost a benign smile that contained in it forgiveness. Treves stared in disbelief, and as he did so Merrick was lit up by a blinding flash of light that seemed to come from the window behind him. Treves blinked against the brilliance of it, unable to comprehend what he was seeing, or even to believe his eyes. When he looked again the moment had passed. Merrick had turned away and was moving toward the bookcase to find a place for the precious new volumes. He seemed unaware that anything unusual had happened.

“John—” Treves was thoroughly confused, but he was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Come in,” called Merrick turning round. He was back to his old self. There was no light and no expression on those set features. Treves might have begun to believe he had imagined everything, but he knew that he was not a fanciful man.

The arrival was Nora, holding a brown paper parcel tied with string. Merrick said nothing. Since they had talked together about his model cathedral more than a month ago he had seen her very seldom, and never alone.

“Are you looking for me, Nurse?” asked Treves.

“No sir, Mr. Merrick.” Nora seemed nervous but she approached Merrick and looked him in the face. “I have something for you.”

A slight tilt of his head indicated his surprise and she turned quickly to the table and opened up the parcel. It contained several squares of new cardboard, a cutting knife, a paste pot, a few brushes, and some paint.

“I thought these things would be helpful with your cathedral,” she said, smiling at him.

“Oh yes—thank you—thank you—” He began to stumble over his words in his efforts to express his thanks. But it was more than thanks and they both knew it. It was his joy and relief that she had returned in spirit to the moment when she talked to him with interest and without reserve. Treves looked from one to the other, touched by the girl’s gesture and by Merrick’s reaction, but realizing there was something here he did not understand. It was not like Merrick to lose his composure these days. If anything he was growing famous for the elegance of his social address.

Merrick began to examine the materials, touching them almost with reverence. Then he laid them carefully aside and at once began to pull the crude spires from the model he had been working on. He could do them so much better now. Nora gave him a smile of total understanding and departed quickly.

“The cathedral is coming along nicely,” Treves observed.

Merrick answered without looking up. He was absorbed.

“Yes, soon I’ll start the main spire, but I must finish these columns first. How kind of her.”

Treves leaned forward to get a better view of what Merrick was doing and found, as Merrick shifted slightly, that he was looking directly at the back of his head. What he saw there made him freeze with dismay. The growths were larger—significantly larger. They must have been growing all these weeks but so slowly that he had never noticed.

“How blind of me,” he murmured.

“I beg your pardon?” Merrick looked up.

“Nothing, John.”

Merrick must never know what he had seen, Treves decided at once. If it really did mean a deterioration of his condition, and possibly the approach of the end of his life, there was no need to worry him with it. But what was left of that life must be made as happy as possible. And suddenly the dread that he would start to hope for too much became irrelevant.

“Is there anything else, John? Anything at all that I could get for you?”

Merrick looked up quickly, his eyes alight. “Oh no, there is nothing. I have everything. You have given me everything I could possibly want. I am happy every hour of the day. I only wish there was something I could give to you.”

“Please, John, it would give me so much pleasure to give you something. Something just for yourself. Isn’t there something you would like to have?”

Merrick was silent for a moment. Then he rose and went over to his cloak, reached into its pocket, and pulled out a folded piece of paper that seemed to have been torn from a newspaper. He handed it to Treves, who examined it closely.

It was an advertisement for an elegant gentleman’s dressing bag. It boasted ivory brushes, silver fittings, and Moroccan silk linings. In its finely wrought luxury
it was the epitome of everything for which Merrick could have no possible use.

“You want a dressing bag, John?”

“You don’t think it’s too gaudy, do you?” Merrick asked anxiously. “It’s really very dashing. It says here it’s something no gentleman should be without. I’m inclined to agree.”

Treves got up and went to the door. “So am I,” he said with decision. “I should have thought of it before. Leave it to me, John. If I can possibly get one, I will.”

In the corridor he began to examine the advertisement again, and became so engrossed in it that he almost walked into Mothershead. She was carrying a parcel.

“Mr. Treves, some more books arrived for Mr. Merrick.”

“I wish they’d stop sending books and start sending money.”

“No better news?”

“No. And there’s barely a week to go till the next Committee meeting,” he sighed. “Have the books put in my office, please. John’s got enough to keep him occupied for the moment.”

“Yes, sir.” Her eyes fell on the paper which he was holding low enough for her to see. “What’s that?”

“A dressing bag,” he said, showing her.

“Very smart indeed.” She looked bewildered.

“Yes. John wants it.”

“
A dressing bag?”

“You don’t think it’s too gaudy, do you?”

“Well—”

“John thinks it’s very dashing. Something no gentleman should be without. I’m inclined to agree.”

As he walked off he had the satisfaction of knowing that for once he had totally deprived Mrs. Mothershead of speech.

Anne, into whose hands he gave the job of acquiring the bag, was similarly speechless, though not for long.

“But what on earth is he going to
do
with it, Freddie? It’s completely useless to him.”

“He doesn’t see it that way. I’ve come to realize that he has another life, one that goes on entirely in his head, and which makes his real life tolerable.

“In his dreams he’s—oh, everything nature meant him to be when she formed his character.” Treves sighed heavily as he added, “and that includes a ladies’ man.”

“Oh Freddie, no.”

“I’m afraid so. He’s a young man in his early twenties and if he has one tragedy that’s greater than all the others put together it’s that his reaction to women is entirely normal. Mrs. Kendal’s first visit made him very much aware of himself as a man, and now he falls—very humbly—in love with every lady that comes to see him. Imagine those feelings inside a body that makes a woman want to run from him.

“He mentioned once that he’d like to go to a blind asylum. Since then I’ve sometimes wondered if it was in his mind that a woman who couldn’t see him might come to love him.”

She was silent for a while, and when he looked he could see tears falling gently down her face. He slipped his arm round her and held her close to him.

“And this dressing case—?” she said at last.

“It’s part of the fantasy. In his dreams he’s not only a great lover but a terrific swell. But he needs some props to help him keep the character up. It’s like that time Jenny put a bit of tinsel on her head one Christmas and wrapped one of the dining room curtains round her? Do you remember we found her parading up and down telling everyone she was a countess?

“Well, it’s the same with John, only he’s a bit limited about the ‘props’ he can use. A real dandy would wear a top hat and a dress suit, but he couldn’t get into them. You couldn’t put a proper shirt on him, or squeeze his feet into patent leather shoes. It’s true he’s got the silver-topped walking cane, and the ring Lady Waddington gave him, but they’re not enough.

“When he has this case it’ll complete the character. He can sit in that room and feel himself to be a dashing young spark. He can’t use the silver-backed brushes and the comb because he’s got very little hair to brush. The razors will be useless to him because he can’t shave. An ordinary toothbrush is no good to him, and neither is a cigar case. But he’ll have them—and he’ll
believe
it, don’t you see?”

“Yes, I begin to,” she said in a sad voice. “Leave it to me, Freddie.”

The Committee meeting neared with the slow, massive unstoppability of a juggernaut. Those who feared it watched its approach with a mounting sense of horror, but the one man who had the most cause to fear being crushed beneath its wheels remained oblivious. Treves, Carr-Gomm, and Mothershead were united in keeping him in happy ignorance till the last possible moment.

The Chairman, encountering Broadneck in the corridor one morning, seized his chance to do a little subtle manipulating.

“Ah Broadneck, you’ll no doubt be pleased to know that we’ve received a smashing response to my letter.” It was a lie, but in the circumstances Carr-Gomm’s soul wasn’t troubled. “It’s all very heart-warming, though several letters do mention how beastly it would be to part the poor fellow from Mr. Treves and the staff, but since the Committee insists …”

“Good day, Carr-Gomm.” Broadneck scowled and passed on down the corridor, leaving the Chairman to reflect on the uselessness of applying subtlety in opposition to brute force.

On the day of the meeting Mrs. Mothershead went early to Carr-Gomm’s office. She did this every day now, immediately after the post’s arrival, and together they looked through the disappointing mail. It never took long.

“A few small cheques,” Carr-Gomm sighed. “But no offer of a home. Nobody wants him.”

“But what’ll happen to him after today, sir?” Mothershead demanded. “If the Committee refuse to let us keep him—”

“I’m afraid they will. There’s not the slightest doubt of that.”

“Then where is he to go?”

Carr-Gomm’s only answer was a sigh and a long look at his hands. Neither of them spoke, but the word “workhouse” hung between them. Both had heard the story of Merrick’s life only at secondhand, but somehow his horror of the workhouse had communicated itself to them so that now it was almost a tangible thing.

There was a knock on the door and Nettleton entered, stiff with importance. Without a word he handed the Chairman something he bore in his hand, the mere touching of which seemed to inspire him with awe. He positively crept out of the room.

A glance at the object Nettleton had handed over explained his behavior. It was a letter, but not such a letter as Mothershead had ever seen before. The paper was thick like parchment, and heavily embossed in a shape that she might almost have mistaken for a royal coat of arms—if she hadn’t known it to be impossible.

The envelope crackled noisily as Carr-Gomm opened it and drew out the sheet of paper within. This too was embossed, and bore only a few short lines, but those lines cleared the worry from Carr-Gomm’s face, and replaced it with a look of disbelieving delight.