A Proper Education for Girls (41 page)

“No, I have not performed this type of surgery myself, though I do have a patient awaiting my attention. It is a procedure I have every confidence will turn the subject from a willful and opinionated individual with questionable moral self-governance into a meek and obedient lady” A flutter of applause greeted this declaration.

“Why, yes!” cried Dr. Cattermole in answer to another mumbled question that Alice did not hear. “I shall be delighted to report my findings to you at a subsequent meeting of the Society. And as the gentleman suggests, I shall take photographs of the lady's physiognomy both before and after the procedure.”

Alice fumbled urgently with the cold, greasy stuff of Sluce's coat. Her fingers slid beneath a dank flap of fabric and into a
bulging pocket. At the bottom of a long, socklike recess her fingers closed around a hard, cold object. She pulled it out. It was a silver trinket box in the shape of a turtle. Alice was sure she had seen such an item on the dressing table in her mother's room when she was a child, but she could not be certain. She placed it on the floor.

Sluce moaned and exhaled noisily, his eyelids fluttering, as though he was about to emerge from oblivion. A faint whiff of gin drifted toward her from his half-open mouth. Alice opened the mnemonic coat. Her searching fingers yielded a silver sugar caster the size and shape of a liturgical ornament, a candlestick, a selection of buckles and bodkins, a postcard depicting the main atrium of the Great Exhibition of 1851, a clock weight and a pendulum, a cloth bag containing eight identical spanners, the rosette from a watering can spout … Two pockets contained nothing more than a few handfuls of shattered pottery fragments (if only it were so easy to get rid of one's unwanted memories, Alice thought grimly).

At length, Alice sat back. She stared at the results of her labors. What had she found? Nothing, it seemed, but half the contents of a bric-a-brac shop. Her hands felt sticky with the touch of Sluce's horrible pockets, her head ached, and she gazed at the heap of aidemémoire cluttered about her feet. She seized the postcard of the Crystal Palace and used it to sift through the sea of objects. She opened a small lacquered box to find a selection of surgical scalpels. Another box contained nothing more interesting than a dirty handkerchief and a piece of folded oilcloth. Alice dropped the handkerchief and pulled out the oilcloth. Something heavy was wrapped within, and Alice almost lost her grip on the item as the cloth unraveled in her hands. She found that she was holding a small mahogany frame of about three and a half inches in diameter. Inside the frame was a square of glass, behind which, Alice presumed, was a picture. She peered at it, but could make nothing out. She squinted closer, rubbing at its surface gently with the corner of her sleeve. And then she held it up to the light.

All at once, staring out at her from above two vast, pale breasts, which appeared to be resting on the rim of her lowered corset like a
pair of suet puddings carried on a tray, was Mrs. Cattermole. There was no mistaking the shining ringlets and coy expression. Mrs. Cattermole was lolling on a mound of cushions, her thighs spread like tumbled bolsters. The glass was well thumbed, the surface opaque with a grubby sheen and blobbed with the greasy marks of Sluce's eager fingerprints.

Alice shuddered. The fetid warmth of the passageway was heavy with the smell of hot lamp glass and exhaled gin. It seemed to be seeping into her clothes and hair and coating her skin like oil. The stench of sulfur from Sluce's shoes and the musty odor of his coat caught in her nostrils, so that she felt her stomach tighten with a sudden wave of nausea. She wrapped the slide in its protective coat of oilcloth and pushed it into her own pocket. Seizing the lamp, she made her way as quickly as she could out of the dark entrails of the building in search of Mr. Blake.

She passed along the hallway quickly and quietly, hoping that the items of the Collection that crowded its flanks would provide places to hide or niches to slip into should the need arise.

All at once her father's voice boomed out. “Alice?”

Alice leaped behind a life-sized statue of the Queen made from the same pottery used in the manufacture of drains and sewers (a gift to her father from Shanks and Company).

At that instant her father rounded the corner in front of her, Dr. Cattermole in his wake. “No, Cattermole, I have no idea where she is. I have sent Sluce to find her.”

“Might I suggest that when she is found she is taken straight to the room I have prepared for her?” replied Dr. Cattermole. “I have yet to speak to Mr. Blake on the matter, though have no doubt he will be glad to be of assistance.”

“Will I have to pay him?” grunted Mr. Talbot. He was standing so close to her hiding place that Alice could see the flecks of dead skin on the shoulders of his coat. She squeezed herself behind the Queen's pottery skirts until she felt as though she were about to tip the statue over.

“The boundary between madness and sanity is a slim one,” Dr.
Cattermole was saying, his voice shrill. “I would suggest that we have no time to lose.”

“Of course, of course. And yet”—Mr. Talbot wrung his hands together—“Are you quite sure, Cattermole?”

“Oh, my dear fellow, it is quite natural that you should be concerned,” replied Dr. Cattermole, his tone as soft as wax. “But it is for the best. Her gentle nature, her sweetness of countenance and docility, will be restored—a most desirable outcome, surely?”

“Docility and sweetness of countenance?” repeated Mr. Talbot doubtfully. “I'm not sure Alice ever possessed those particular attributes, although I must confess I have always found her to be a most lively dinner companion …”

“This is no time for hesitancy, Talbot,” hissed Dr. Cattermole.

Alice saw her father's shoulders stiffen beneath his coat, so that she could almost hear the seams creaking. “We must find her,” he croaked at last. “I cannot be sure of anything anymore.”

A
LICE RAN TOWARD
the ballroom, quickly now, in case her father and the doctor should return. Inside, the room was thronged with men—talking, nodding, jabbing at open books with bony fingers or flourishing sheaves of paper beneath each other's noses. Those more subdued members of the society were milling around her father's artifacts, gazing with interest at the various pieces or staring dimly into the swimming formaldehyde of Dr. Cattermole's museum of bodily off-cuts. Some of them held cups of tea in their hands, though how her father, without the help of Sluce, had managed to organize refreshments for so many people Alice had no idea. She peered through the door, searching for Mr. Blake, but could not see him anywhere. A few curious gazes began to turn in her direction. Alice hurried away.

She headed toward the hothouse. The jungle of foliage would provide her with concealment. As the hothouse doors swung closed silently behind her, the heavy atmosphere enveloped her like a mother's embrace. From deep within the leafy bowels of the
conservatory she could hear the gentle sounds of her aunts' voices, the soft chink of teaspoons on saucers. As she hurried through Alice noted absently here and there the iron grids above the hot-water pipes were entwined with root growth, which clung to the fretwork like the shaggy fingers of an escaping prisoner. It was as though the entire building was about to burst apart.

“Alice, my dear,” said Aunt Statham, peering at her through the gloom. “There you are.”

“Alice, your father has been looking for you,” said Aunt Rush-ton-Bell.

“With that odious Dr. Cattermole,” said Old Mrs. Talbot.

Alice said nothing.

“They have something planned for you,” said Aunt Lambert. She looked at Alice closely. “Some idea of Cattermole's. Mrs. Statham overheard them. Do you know what it is? Alice, my dear, you must let us help you.”

“I don't think anyone can help me,” said Alice gloomily. “Apart from Mr. Blake, perhaps.”

“He was looking for you too,” said Aunt Rushton-Bell, shuffling her cards. “Not ten minutes ago.” She cupped a hand around her ear. “Is something wrong?”

Alice opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She slid a hand into her pocket, her fingers touching the greasy cover of Sluce's plate-glass slide. She had no idea what to do for the best.

“Mr. Blake seems fond of you, Alice,” said Aunt Statham. “But you know, my dear, you must beware. Men always want something more than they pretend. You'd be better off talking to us instead. We only want to see you happy.”

“Indeed, Aunt,” said Alice. But she had heard a noise in the foliage. She took a step back, trampling Aunt Pendleton's ear trumpet beneath her heel. The screen of bamboo, which now concealed Alice's escritoire as effectively as a garden fence, thrashed from side to side. A disheveled Mr. Blake burst forth, like a partridge flushed from a cornfield.

“Alice,” he said, breathlessly. “Miss Talbot. Thank goodness I've found you. I've been looking for you all over the place.”

“I was found by Sluce,” said Alice, “I heard Cattermole and my father talking; they have a room set aside for me. Dr. Cattermole plans to operate as soon as possible. He has all the necessary equipment here. He says that you are to help him, as his assistant—his anesthetist and his photographer. He wishes to take pictures of the procedure. He is looking for you.”

Mr. Blake reached out and took Alice by the arms. “Well then,” he said, smiling, “as we have found one another at last, perhaps we might get on with it.” He looked over her shoulder. “Dr. Cattermole? If you are ready?”

Alice gasped. She spun around to see Dr. Cattermole, triumph on his face, emerging from the foliage like a weasel from a bank of undergrowth. Her father loomed behind him, his face crimson, his beard beaded with moisture. Alice gave a cry of horror. She turned left and right, but there was no escape, hemmed in as she was by tables, chairs, stools, and settees. Old ladies seemed to be everywhere, their mouths open, their hands shaking, their paraphernalia of sticks and shawls, baskets of knitting, card tables, and tea trays gathered about her like snares and traps set to catch the unwary. Alice staggered against Aunt Lambert's chair, almost collapsing onto it (and its occupant, who had been struggling to rise). The hothouse seemed to spin about her, its warmth now a smothering blanket, its throbbing pipes a ceaseless hammering in her brain. She heard her aunts' voices raised, their teacups rattling into their saucers as they tottered about in useless indignation. She felt firm hands pin her arms, and the broiling atmosphere turned heavy with the stench of ether.

A
UNT
L
AMBERT MADE HER WAY THROUGH THE SILENT
hallways of the great house. Behind her, in stately procession, Aunt Statham held the arm of Old Mrs. Talbot; Aunt Pendleton pushed Aunt Rushton-Bell in her bath chair. As usual, Mr. Talbot was economizing and there were no lamps to light their way other than the ones they carried themselves. Aunt Lambert held aloft a flickering candle. Aunt Statham and Old Mrs. Talbot, generally too feeble to hold anything but their sticks in one hand and one another's arms in the other, blinked over her shoulder, peering myopically into the uncertain darkness. Aunt Rushton-Bell carried a lamp, its smoking wick casting her eye sockets into hollows of empty blackness, so that she resembled a mummified cadaver being wheeled along in an open coffin. Each of them wore black, as befitted their widowed status, and their faces glimmered like bone in the wavering candlelight. This macabre pageant passed as slowly as a funeral procession between the jumping shadows of the Collection.

“Are you sure it's her?” whispered Aunt Pendleton loudly. “In that picture?”

“Most certainly it is,” said Aunt Statham. “I never forget a face.” “Is this wise?” said Old Mrs. Talbot. “Perhaps we should discuss it a little more over a nice cup of tea. I should so hate to do the wrong thing. And we have Alice to think about.”

“What is there to discuss?” said Aunt Lambert over her shoulder. “We can only do the wrong thing if we do nothing. We must show Cattermole to be the man, the
beast
, he really is. We must
reveal
him to Edwin. Alice dropped that glass photograph in my lap for a purpose. We can't just sit about drinking tea in her hour of need. We must act, and act now!”

“But we don't know where she is,” insisted Aunt Rushton-Bell. “There are hundreds of rooms in this house. She could be in any one of them. Besides, the door will most certainly be locked, and I for one have not the strength to break it down, as much as I might wish to do so.”

Aunt Lambert nodded. “And as we cannot search every room, we must take matters into our own hands.”

The aunts nodded to one another and murmured their agreement. Their heads held high in defiant resolve, they turned the corner. In front of them the doors to the ballroom stood open, the light from Dr. Cattermole's magic lantern spilling into the hall in a splash of bloody color.

“Here we are, ladies,” said Aunt Lambert. “Now, remember what I said. We must stick together against Talbot and his dreadful friends. They will object, of course. After all, we are only
women
, and
women
are not permitted to enter the citadel. But we must make them listen. We must stand firm. Together, we can prevail!”