Devoured (6 page)
He turned the key in the lock to be met by the usual greeting of Mrs Gallant’s King Charles spaniel baring its teeth and snarling at him.
‘He likes you. He really does, Professor. Shall I take your coat, sir? I’ve got some soup ready. Stop it, Archie. Really, the dog is very bad. Aren’t you, Archie, dear?’
Hatton’s smile was weak and he often gave the dog a sharp kick, but not in full view of the owner, who this evening was wearing a full-skirted brocade of orange tartan. She’d worn it specially, because Mrs Gallant loved Professor Hatton only second to her dog, and often wondered to herself that if she was ten years younger, or perhaps twenty, and a dress size smaller, or perhaps several, he might one day sweep her up into his arms and declare, ‘Mrs Gallant, it’s more than your economical soup I’m after.’ But luckily for Hatton, no such thought had ever occurred to him. He was oblivious to her head tilts, her dips, her special favours, and the jealous stares of the older tenants at the lodging house, who he thought were very welcome to her.
‘No soup, Mrs Gallant. Not tonight. I ate at the morgue.’
Professor Hatton went upstairs and closed the door behind him. Somewhere along the corridor a piano could be heard. Keys played, off scale.
His bachelor rooms were comfortable enough. One room adjoining another, the latter room benefiting from a huge sash window, a desk, an easy chair, but very little else save his medical journals.
He ran his finger along a shelf until he found the thing he was looking for, which was a small wooden box. No
Strombus
gigas
or anything so impressive, but to Hatton this box had no need for grand dimensions to be of value. It simply was so.
He opened it to reveal a shell, too delicate for words. Too delicate for touch. Nestled in cloth, an angel coloured nautilus which, with barely a thumb press, would shatter into a thousand pieces. A crystalline wafer, gone. Dead, like the creature who had once lived there, and beneath the shell, a small piece of paper. Not a love letter, but a list of facts, written in the bold hand of a child. Not much older than the girl today in the mortuary he’d been, when on a glorious day one summer, he’d found the shell washed up on Wittering Beach. Professor Hatton smiled to himself at the memory, but at the same time was troubled. To smash a woman’s skull? To hear it shatter? And for what? Hatton knew the dangers of being a freethinker. Lady Bessingham had been writing before she died; forensics had proven it. And Mr Broderig had grown so agitated when he spoke of their correspondence. He’d been pale from the autopsy, of course, but it was more than that. Broderig seemed worried, a little desperate even. So, thought Hatton, putting the nautilus back in the box, where were the letters now?
Sarawak
June 4th, 1855
Dear Lady Bessingham,
The mail boat arrives this afternoon and so I decided to sit down once more and put pen to paper. Suffice to say, you would
not recognise me, dear lady. I am already liberally freckled and my hair is turning blond. I have grown a fine set of burnished whiskers to give the impression that I know more of this collector’s trade than is entirely true. Whiskers, the longer the better it seems, have two excellent uses in this climate. Firstly, they impress upon the Dayaks that I have some age and some authority. The men are practically hairless and cannot grow a beard. Secondly, the whiskers keep the bugs and flies off my chin. Because if there is one thing I cannot get used to, it is the biting and infernal scratching which is part of my life here along the marshy banks of the Sarawak River. And I have been warned, if one does not take the right precautions, the impact on my body can be grave indeed. I have therefore followed the advice of my friend and companion Mr Emmerich Mann (who, by the way, is a very erudite German) and taken to swallowing quantities of powdered quinine, washed down with generous amounts of rice wine.Perhaps I should describe this place to you? My house is quite basic. Built on stilts to keep the rains out, its sides are made of ironwood. The floor creaks deliciously under my bare feet as I pad about, and as this hut was once a rice store, it is embellished with some wondrous carvings. The Dayaks believe that rice has a soul and that they must worship it to keep evil spirits away, and so you see, I am protected not just by my little talisman but also by the twisted serpents which curl around the roof.
The hut sits on the edge of a forest by a river which curls towards a pearl-white beach. And what better place to immerse
the intellect and soul? The river gives me endless pleasure, and I often sit here and watch bright-green butterflies settle on the ground fluttering their petrol wings in unison, like some orchestra of colour. There are ancient turtles in the river and dolphins which rise and click, as if they’re laughing at my open-mouthed amazement.But perhaps the most bizarre of my neighbours, Mr Mann aside (I jest here, madam), are the mudskippers
(Periophthalmodon schlosseri).
Are they fish? Or are they lizards? They have gills but live above the water, and astonishingly walk along the land. They are fish that walk. This is the truth, and it is a truth which begs a question. When God created the mudskipper, could he not make up his mind?And I wonder if these little fellows would travel well, for I’d love to take them back to England so that we could all admire their qualities. They are four inches long, or thereabouts, and have the face of a fish. Their bodies are slimy and wet, and they have fins and tails, but spend much of their time hopping from place to place or wiggling through primordial splendour.
Nature isn’t tamed here, as it is in Ashbourne. It bursts out and clamours. It creeps, weaves, and glistens.
From time to time, I wander the mile into Sarawak, a great sprawling stretch of bustling buildings and people, so different from my forest. And it’s here that I get my provisions and have been able to build up quite a comprehensive collection of equipment which I will be taking on to Simunjan. I have now in my possession a sturdy camp bed, a compass, a selection of fish
hooks, a barometer, ammunition, a gun, and, of course, spirits for preserving the specimens I hope to capture upriver.Armed with your letters of introduction, I was invited to a party held at the gardens of the British Consul. The gathering was most enjoyable – delicious pastries, English tea, dainty sandwiches, ladies dressed in flounces beguiling one with idle chit-chat. Pleasant enough but more interesting, a small, rather ramshackle collection of Dutchmen caught my eye, for they were scribbling in their notebooks and chattering animatedly about something in the foliage.
I went up to them and made an introduction. Firstly, a Mr Banta most politely tipped his hat. Whilst another introduced himself as Mr Demarest and explained that his colleagues had noticed a very unusual and quite new beetle
(Cyphogastra calepyga)
in the undergrowth. Well, as you can imagine this was my opportunity to explain to them my purpose and, at once, much discussion then took flight on the various components of our trade.And the very next day, they invited me to town for a game of chess, and it was while playing that I discovered that their best player, a Mr Christiaan Ackerman, is more of a businessman than the others and has strong views on the trade of collecting. He had a ledger with him but was not inclined to share its details, which I can fully understand. What he did tell me is that he works for a number of trading companies, as well as individuals, and specialises in the more unusual specimens. He quite plainly ridiculed my interest in insects and reptiles, telling
me emphatically that what wealthy buyers wanted was the Beast.Because if
money
was a concern, he stressed the word again, bearing down on me with his mesmerising eyes, then it was the Magnificent, the Mighty, the Stupendous, and the Monstrous that we collectors must provide.And Mr Ackerman spoke quite vocally about his concern that with so many new Naturalists arriving, men such as himself were feeling the pressure to produce increasingly impressive finds. Therefore, the results of any expedition, he stressed, given the great costs in organising such a venture, should be significant.
And so after a week or more worth of chess playing and entomological discussions, zoological transgressions, philosophical digressions, and economic ramblings, I am sharing my journey with these Dutchmen, and it seems, aside from embarking on a collection of reptiles and beetles, shall be going on an ape hunt.
Your dutiful servant,
Benjamin Broderig, etc.
It was past midnight when Ashby finally left Westminster, the Duke’s speech on trade delivered to no one much, the audience a paltry collection of the dead and the dug up. The Lords was not The Commons, but it was still an opportunity to show off, without any of the bother of intelligent argument.
At the late-night sitting, the Duke had snatched the speech from Ashby’s hands, declaring that he would not offer up anything tangential, but would stick to the point. Ashby bowed, noticing an odd scent which sometimes clung to the Duke’s clothes. The Duke smelt of sweat and cigar smoke but also of something else, something which was hard to put a name to. Ashby pondered on it as he sat at the back of the chamber listening to his master’s drone, slightly distracted. His eyes were dimming, and as they did so, other senses rose to the fore. His imagination, his sense of touch, his sensitivity to smell. There was a tap on his shoulder. A manservant in liveried clothes, interrupting these thoughts.
‘Oi, Ashby. The Duke’s in need of his snuffbox. Fingersmith’s been at ’im. Says you carries a spare one.’
Ashby delved into his pocket and found the silver one he carried for the Duke, which had no jewelled edges but would do perfectly well, and ensure that all went smoothly tonight and that, as ever, order prevailed.
The speech over, Ashby headed out into the ink of midnight, bent double by the snow. He trudged along, keeping his eyes to the ground, an acid light thrown from the gas lamps, spacing out farther and farther until there was but one solitary beam, positioned on a corner where alley met alley, which said Welcome to The Borough.
Checking in his pockets with fumbling fingers, the old man remembered Madame Martineau’s words, which had festered in his mind for over a week now.
‘Oh yes. What I have is worth a pretty penny, alright. So you get the money, Mr Ashby, if you know what’s good for you. Because what’s good for you is good for the Duke of Monreith.’
She’d stepped out of the dark, not far from where Ashby stood now, almost as a spectre might. A chimera of silk, a vapour of perfume, as she tucked her arm around his and drew him into her, her jutting hip like a knife, her fingers like daggers, as she repeated, ‘And make sure the money’s clean. I don’t want anything grimy. I won’t put a figure on it, but let me tell you, what I have to offer is security. We don’t want the whole apple cart upturned, do we now? We don’t want turmoil. We want everything to stay just as it was, a world which is immutable. Like my heart,’ and she’d laughed. ‘Like stone, Mr Ashby. But stone can change given the right conditions. Situations can shift and in your case, perhaps not for the better. Haven’t you read Charles Lyell? I thought you were an educated man, Mr Ashby. I thought you were the king’s own clerk.’ And yes, of course he had read Charles Lyell and his
Principles of Geology
. How the earth had evolved over millions of years. How the present was the key to the past. But what had that got to do with the Duke of Monreith? But before Ashby could ask, she had already gone.
But what to do about it? Only one thing it seemed, so he’d rifled through his mother’s things and pawned the ring. Isn’t that what was demanded? Isn’t that what he did? Tidy things up for the Duke? Do as he was told? And now do as she said. And understanding all the time the nub of it: that money was key to this transaction.
The entrance to the old house, a shoddy pile of dirty brick and fallen timbers, was down an unlit alley, off Weavers Lane. A bundle of dirty rags was piled up in the snow outside the doorway. He wrinkled his nose, stepping over the moaning heap of soiled clothes which begged him, ‘Luvvie, spare a coin,’ and stepped into a passageway, more black than the alley he’d left.