Lizard World (19 page)

      
The footsteps were coming closer. Oh my God, oh my God, he could smell -- he could smell perfume. Well maybe . . . maybe if he just opened the lids partway, he could peek out through the lashes -- and his visitor would never notice.

      
The shock of what he saw felt like a sucker punch somewhere deep in the belly of this alien carcass. He was conscious of its old meat drawing a deep breath, and of its suddenly racing heart, as if sparked into life by a transfusion of high-voltage electricity. The blackness of that negligee was only the thinnest of films, making nakedness more naked, hiding only to inflame. She -- whoever this delicious creature was-- was wearing a gold ring on her left hand. Was she the old boy’s wife?

      
Of course he would never, he told himself again, permit himself to think of this old carcass as his own. But if, just for argument’s sake, he did: well, then this ripe, young, achingly voluptous beauty might be his wife -- and those lips, those thighs, those breasts might be his -- his to touch, taste, nibble and enjoy. But he could not touch or taste or nibble. He could not even tell if somewhere, in this dead expanse of meat, an old soldier was struggling to attention. He could only look at her. He could only watch the adorable, pink life of her fresh, young loveliness as she brushed her hair and took out her contact lenses. He could only hear the rustle of the sheets as she got into bed beside him and smell the faint, tempting agony of her perfume.

Chapter IX.

Wherein his Lordship wins a locket and a Lady, and Doctor Fludd

encounters with a Cyclops and makes wondrous chirurgical discoveries.

Albeit several
wearisome and degrading months had now passed since I had been vouchsafed employment in his Lordship’s household, natheless not once had I been given leave to attend -- with the full dignity of a physician -- upon the person of my noble patient. To be sure, as a mere menial, I had oftentimes been favoured with the charge of mopping up a vomit or of spilling out a jordan; for his Lordship oft was purg’d and did his occasions like other mortals. But as a surgeon -- the calling upon which I had lavish’d the burden of my hopes and the solitude of my midnight studies -- I had never once been called. For these daily and insufferable indignities -- and yet more to follow -- I was entirely indebted to old Frobin. Whilst he performed his mysterious operations, I was ever and again locked out from his Lordship’s chamber and only stomached to intrude when bidden to fetch the leeches or to carry off a bloody bandage. For so fearful was the old humpback that I might, perchance, endeavour to usurp him, that I was at all times forbidden to observe lest I steal the precious secrets of his knife.

      
The prodigies of surgery being, as I have told, the darlings of my study, I could not patiently brook such offensive and perpetual exclusion. But ev’n this might almost have been bearable had my curiosity not been elsewise harshly over-tax’d. That his Lordship was suffering a metamorphosis of a most painful and peculiar kind I could scarcely question. I myself had seen the claws -- a memory which, perhaps, I might have started to misdoubt -- had I not, of late, amongst the knives and tourniquets, discovered several lumps of scaly meat. In vain, amidst my books, I sought a plausible diagnosis of this malady. My medical authors, indeed, afforded ample testimony that nature’s capricious cruelty had ofttimes given men the faces of dogs and the tails of monkeys. But such bestial deformities were of a fixed, albeit horrid, permanence. Amongst the cankers alone could I find such a morbid efflorescence of matter, but never giving rise to the flesh and bones of beasts. Unless his Lordship were afflicted by some species of lycanthropy, I could nowise explain such a virulent and bestial degeneracy.

      
Thus, of an evening, was I fruitlessly scouring my pages -- when on a sudden, beneath my window, I heard a thund’rous and peremptory knocking. Inasmuch as I had not yet been degraded to the station of a scullion, I did not as a matter of course, nor readily, lay down my book to attend the kitchen door. This knocking, howsoever, being so near and withal so clamorous, I could not chuse but go downstairs and draw the bolt.

      
A constable, whom I knew straightways by his staff of authority, gan at once to importune me with his business -- saying, in fine, that a chewed and mangled corse had been discovered thereabouts and enquiring whether, perchance, I had heard of any deadly feuds or knew of any madman ‘scaped from Bedlam. At once, to be sure, I guessed the genuine agent of this crime. But loth as I was to betray my noble master and my patient, I put off this blockhead of a constable with the spurious intelligence that I had heard oftentimes of a large black dog -- much given to ravenous attack and afflicted, moreover, with the rabies.

      
I make mention of this incident not because of the disquieting intrusion of the law nor ev’n because it was the first time when I had certain knowledge of the direful consequences of his Lordship’s curious distemper; but moreover than this I speak of it because, whilst I put this constable off the scent, old Frobin contrived to overhear. For no sooner had my visitor left and I had bolted and double-lock’d the door, than I encountered old Frobin a-standing by the stair-case. I cannot say that he deign’d to thank me or that he favoured me otherwise than with his wonted silent scowl. But ’twas doubtless owing to my having so well acquitted myself on this occasion that I was henceforth, in a manner, admitted to his grudging and mistrustful confederacy.

      
I still was not, I need hardly add, admitted to the mysteries of his scalpel. But inasmuch as I was henceforward, in this old scoundrel’s estimation, deserving in some measure of his confidence, I was now vouchsaf’d to compound medicines or to seek abroad for serviceable specimens -- altho’, to be sure, he would oft upraid me for the slowness of my work or cavil about the freshness of the meat. But ’twas not, I regret to say, for my labours as an apothecary nor for the performance of my melancholy trade -- nor for my daily charge of bandages and piss-pots -- that this scurvy old hump-back would at length consent to make me privy to his art.

I blush
now to confess it -- and e’en more to bring to mind the tumourous enormity of my sin -- but I had not the least suspect of a hidden purpose when this damnable knave granted me a stall for my sorrel in his Lordship’s stable. But alas, I had then, in the callow pride of youth, in my giddiness at having enter’d the service of a noble Lord, expended my last farthing on a sorrel mare and indebted myself to a hostler for an outworn carriage. ’Twas by means of these prideful extravagancies that Frobin purposed to entrap me -- and, indeed, the more I was treated, at his hands, with the indignities of a shite-house fly, the more I affected the patches and periwigs of my betters and sought solace in the finery of my carriage and my horse. I might speak more largely of my ungodly follies but -- lest I be accused of putting off the narrative of my chiefest sin -- let me instead hasten to relate that I went daily to the stable to feed my sorrel and ere long remarked that some accurst beggar or noisome beast was pilfering her feed. This thievery being a daily occurrence, I had -- as one might readily conceive -- a great mind to come upon the culprit.

      
For this purpose, late of an evening, I secreted myself in the stable, a-crouching in my carriage but a stone’s throw from my horse’s stall. By reason that my poor little mare had, many a time and oft, been bitten -- in a struggle, doubtless, for her food -- I had brought along and cock’d my pistol. For I fancied (I know not why) this thieving pest to be a great rat bloated with carrion and disease and I had resolv’d to put it down. But ’twas not, alas -- as I presently saw -- a gluttonous rat, but some other variety of abominable creature.

      
I say creature, for a clever monkey -- nay, a clever dog -- had a greater and more pleasing resemblance with the human form. For what suddenly I saw, upon all fours, its greasy rags beset by flies, its mad and vile countenance all but hidden by a soil’d abundancy of hair, had a hog’s capacious snout and -- in the midst of its scarr’d and pustulous forehead -- but a single wild eye. Suffice it to say that I stept back when this lamentable object commenced to sniff my breech and fawn upon me. Indeed, so unlook’d-for and so thorough
was my revulsion, that -- I regret to say -- I lost all thought of my precious little mare and hied me from the stable with all speed.

No
sooner had I ’scaped from this monster to the bookish solitude of my narrow chamber than I conceiv’d a great and urgent curiosity to know what manner of creature this was, wherefore it had the countenance of a swinish cyclops and why it was suffer’d to be shelter’d amongst the saddles, troughs and horses in his Lordship’s stable. In fine -- my aversion to the blackguard nothwithstanding -- I had no other recourse than to ask this intelligence of Simkyn Potter.

      
This wretch, it is hardly to be wonder’d at, I had done my most assiduous best to cast off and avoid. For I had but too well, it seems, perswaded him of my fellowship and appreciative regard, in consequence of which he ever and again assay’d to entrap me on some balcony or staircase, cast his odious arm upon my shoulder and -- in the odorous surfeit of his cups -- favour me with the tiresome recitation of his gaming and amours. These unwelcome confidences had, by the by, become lately all the more distressing -- by reason that poor Bessie Stubbs, whom I had so rejoiced to bring into his Lordship’s service, had become the reluctant object of this rogue’s persistent and lascivious advances.

      
But notwithstanding these ample causes of distaste, my curiosity now compelled me to join this fellow Potter where it was his wont, of an evening, to take his ease -- seated with his gin at the table next the kitchen fire. At the very first, in despight my friendly solicitation, he did not seem to be of mind to answer to my questions. But rather, betwixt swilling his gin and thrusting cheese into his chops, he favoured me with an instance of his foul-mouth’d indecency, making lewd remarks upon poor Bessie’s person and bragging on his feats of ungentlemanly forwardness. Howsoever, when I did object that I could nowise listen to such churlishness and stood up to leave, he did at length answer me
that the miserable object I had but lately seen was none other than the Pig-faced Cyclops Lady who -- along with a dragon with two heads and other suchlike monstrosities -- had been much celebrated by a credulous multitude and gaped at for a three-pence at Bartholomew Fair.

      
Upon the receit of this intelligence I might now, perchance, have left this ill-bred knave to the solace of his drink had he not (knowing full well how to bait his hook) made mention that this swinish cyclops was not a prank of waggish nature -- but rather a handiwork of the old Prussian barber’s chirurgical art. Since old Frobin (as now I learn’d) was himself the creature’s sire, nature, in very sooth, must needs have play’d some small part in her begetting. But this admirable chirurgeon, it seems, ever desirous to entertain the rabble and not content that nature had granted him an idiot, had contriv’d to improve its cruel perversity by fashioning the visage of a monster.

      
Certain it is that this fellow Potter was the most crudest and utterly deprav’d of wretches. For no sooner had he whisper’d me this disgustful confidence, than he commenced to laugh aloud and spray abroad his drink and slap the table with his hand, as tho’ such a villainous and unnatural abomination as he had spoken of were but the most pleasantest sport and fittingest occasion of his merriment. Nor, said he -- now mastering his mirth -- was this hog-faced Cyclops daughter the only prodigy of this damnable barber’s manufacture. Indeed, the old rascal’s prolifick knife had brought forth a litter of such spawn, an exotick Garden of Monstrosities with which he had diverted crowds of worthy citizens from one fair to the next. ’Twas at such an entertainment, it seems, that his Lordship, but lately return’d from a sojourn amongst the Indian salvages, already evidencing signs of his singular distemper and in need of some pleasurable diversion, had chanced to make acquaintance of Old Frobin.

      
Peradventure had his Lordship not then happ’ned on this shew of prodigious curiosities, this sinful old hump-back might never have ’scaped hanging. For not content with getting his pence from the exhibit of monstrosities, it was his wont to augment his meager gains by jostling with the crowd and picking pockets. Having been surprized in this employment by a constable, he was like -- if not to have suffer’d a worser fate -- at the very least to have been whipp’d or pillory’d or branded for a thief upon his wrinkled cheek, had his Lordship not then been pleased to intervene. This sagacious and noble earl, requiring a surgeon and perceivng these monstrosities to be proofs -- not of the sportiveness of nature but of an unexampled cunningness of art -- did not demur to assert the awful privileges of a peer and demand the deference due a personage of his rank and dignity. His Lordship, in fine, being most peremptory and this constable being of no mind to trifle with the quality, the scurvy old sinner was at length set free. It was, it doth appear, thereupon concluded that henceforth the old surgeon would supply a sufficiency of fresh parts to replace the degenerous flesh and bestial growths of this noble Earl’s distemper. In exchange, for his part, his Lordship would undertake to protect the old rogue and his Cyclops daughter -- and, at length, procure her some serviceable wretch as a mere stud-house stallion in order that she might breed.