The Specimen (11 page)
Authors: Martha Lea
“Did you hear that?” Gwen touched Edward’s sleeve. “I thought I heard it before; I’m sure I’m not mistaken this time.”
Edward looked at her, and as their eyes met, they both heard the noise, louder this time and undeniably there. “Some kind of animal? Perhaps a weasel with a rabbit,” he said.
“No,” Gwen shook her head, and looked away into the middle distance, scrunching her eyes into slits as though that might make her hear better. “No,” she said again, the
blood gone from her face. “It’s more human.” Gwen was yards away from Edward, before he realised that he was running after her.
Edward did not want to go into Carrick House now. He’d thought about what it might be like in there often enough; conjured up a picture of something extraordinary, even
though he knew that in all probability it was the kind of house you would not remark upon except for its occupants. Now he had discovered that his wife had been there. Spiritualism and hokus pokus;
Isobel was mocking him again. He’d been so sure that she had been lying, calling his bluff. He knew for certain that Gwen was not a Spiritualist. The very idea that she would indulge in that
particular abomination was so preposterous. He’d laughed in Isobel’s face. But she’d described the house in such detail. What was he to do? He thought of Gwen with her furrowed
forehead scuffing the ground with her foot and imagined that he knew what it must be like, to be her. Waiting for him to appear. Looking under the tree, not letting herself hope that he might be
there. And then the chill from the ground penetrating their bodies. No wonder she was guarded, angry. She was besieged by his long absences, and now Isobel, too, with her silly games. He’d
meant to ask her to come away with him in a different way. He’d meant to use different words, but they’d rolled around at the back of his throat. His apology for his inconsistencies; it
was a bolus refusing to be anything but that.
The house appeared from behind the screen of tall laurels: red brick, amongst so much green. Edward stopped in his tracks to admire it. Gwen caught his arm and pulled him forward into its
shadow. “This house,” he said to her, “it’s barely twenty years old, is it?”
“What? Oh, yes. The other one was demolished to make room for it. I’m told it was a scandalous thing to do. At least they left the garden—”
It began to rain. Hard spittles smacked the windows at his back as Edward suppressed his desire to flee the place. Gwen turned to the bundle propped up in the chair. “Mr
Harris, help is here now. I’m sure Mr Scales will be able to get your eye open.”
Edward hesitated, concentrating on the pool of light at the table.
Gwen went outside and pumped a jugful of water. She brought it to the table with a glass. Edward looked critically at the dwarf. His eyelid was swollen, and where Euphemia had stitched the lids
together, there was a general crustiness of blood mixed with yellow secretions. Edward glanced at Gwen, wishing that some of her apparent calm would settle on him.
“I can remove these, but, as for the rest, I am no specialist. I will be as careful as possible.”
“I’d be much obliged, sir,” said Fergus.
Edward said, “We’ll have to bathe it first. Some boiled and cooled salty water would be best, I think.”
As Gwen moved around him organising things, checking the water was at the right temperature, spooning salt into it, Edward wondered at her composure. Bed sheets tied around a man, pinning his
arms to his sides, fixing his head still—he couldn’t imagine the terror of it. He couldn’t imagine why this man had not been able to save himself. Did she pounce on him? Did she
trick him? Somewhere in the house Euphemia was locked safely away in her room. Edward recalled Gwen’s face as she’d led Euphemia away from the scene. Euphemia bedraggled and
wild-looking, slumping into her sister’s arms, letting herself be moved away. Madness. There were all kinds of madness. Perhaps this was what Gwen had meant when she’d told him that
there were other things to consider. Not the shame of being the mistress at all.
As he worked gingerly at the threads of silk, Edward’s own eyes pricked with exhaustion and he battled to keep them open. Gwen stood behind Fergus with her hands on her servant’s
shoulders, her body pushed up against the chair.
No one said anything. The atrocious task in front of him seemed to demand an equally atrocious silence. Here I am, he thought, picking thread from eyelids. It was all too much of a mess, yet he
had to find some way of persuading her to accept his offer. His hands fumbled. He thought of the wasted hours young women like Euphemia spent bending over needlework; it’d be enough to drive
one to madness, perhaps. He wiped his face on his sleeve. If he could have bright daylight he could get this done much quicker. But the lamplight made everything uncertain. Was that silk thread or
was that a bit of flesh? He had to decide. The blood oozed out of the puffled-up lids, and Fergus sat tight, bracing himself against the back of the chair. He’d be a mess in the morning. Gwen
was watching Edward. He wanted to know what she was thinking. Was she making her decision, or was she lost in some other place not connected to where she stood? Edward cleared his throat several
times just to make a noise. An hour passed and he wanted to rest, but it was better just to get on and finish the job.
THE TIMES
, Wednesday, October 2, 1866.
MURDER TRIAL AT THE OLD BAILEY.
O
N the second day of The Crown v. Pemberton, a veritable rumpus was observed outside the Central Criminal Court, as
members of the public, keen to obtain entry to the gallery, had gathered in large numbers.
Witnesses for the Prosecution were called after the opening. The first, Mr James Morrisson, said, “I was valet to Mr Scales since the date of his first marriage up to the time he went
away. I was never given notice to leave the house, and I carried on there until the present time, or near enough.”
Q: “And how did you become aware of the untimely passing of Mr Scales?”
A: “I heard the noise, downstairs, in the morning. As I came down, I came upon the three men that I know to be the two police constables and her husband.”
Q: “Do you mean Mr Pemberton, the prisoner’s husband, Mr Morrisson?”
A: “I do that.”
Q: “You had been at the deceased’s residence the night previous to this?”
A: “Yes, and most of the day as well. Mr Scales was in town, and I knew that he’d be in need of my services. As it turned out, his wants were not many, and I had not much to attend
to, so I retired. I was aware of his having visitors—a lady. I saw her enter the house about three in the afternoon. From an upstairs window I saw her approach the house, and Mr Scales let
her in himself. He’d already said that he wouldn’t want to be disturbed at all should he get a visit from anyone, so I kept to the back of the house until I heard the door bang shut
about seven or so. He did not ring for me all night, so I did not go near his room.”
Mr Shanks for the Defence: “Is it not the case, Mr Morrisson, that you were not wanted by the deceased Mr Scales in the days leading up to his death, but that you forced your way into
the property, in your own words, ‘to make his life a misery’?”
A: “I never said so.”
Q: “We shall see, Mr Morrisson.”
Other witnesses included staff from households neighbouring the Victim’s address. Mrs Peters gave her evidence thus: “I have been housekeeper at the property adjoining the
Scales’ residence for some years and have always noticed the quantity of visitors, or lack of them, going into that house. On the morning of the last but one day of July this year I saw a
man approach the house and I heard his knocking. I remember this quite clearly as it was so persistent. I also recall it in detail as I remember wondering at the time that a person should knock
so when the house was empty. Then, on looking out more carefully, I saw who was there, and, of course, I was surprised to see Mr Morrisson returned after such a long absence. Well, naturally as
his banging and knocking was a nuisance I sent out Smythe, my footman.”
The footman, Mr Smythe, then later gave his evidence: “I am Smythe, footman to the Picard household, and on the morning of July 30th I was instructed to go out and tell the gent making
the racket that the house he was banging on was empty. I went out and I said to the man, who I knew to have been valet there long since but knew not on common terms, ‘Here, the place is
empty, sir.’ In reply, he said to me that he knew Mr Scales was in there for certain and that he was d—d if he wasn’t going to get in there and have words. He was very agitated
and of a very high colour in the face, and persisted with his banging. I stood there some minutes and tried to persuade him that his racket was useless, when, all of a sudden, the door opened,
and I saw Mr Scales himself. Mr Scales did not seem at all pleased to see who was stood on his doorstep. ‘What the D—are you doing here?’ he says to Morrisson, and Morrisson
says back to him, ‘More to the point, what the blazes are you doing here?’ except stronger words than that was used, sir. ‘I’ve more right to be in this property than
you,’ says Morrisson to Mr Scales, and then he pushed his way over the doorstep, and Mr Scales done nothing to stop him. I asked Mr Scales if he would like me to assist and he said
he’d deal with the matter himself. Just before he shut the door, I heard Morrisson telling him he’d stay there whether he liked it or not and that he’d make his life a misery
while he was at it.”
Doctor Alexander Jacobs gave his evidence: “I attended the body of Mr Edward Scales at around ten o’clock on the morning of the 7th of August. The body had been turned over, but,
other than that, had not been moved. Evidence of the body having lain face down on the floor for some time was immediately apparent. Because of this effect, it was not at first obvious that any
trauma had occurred to the body. However, on detailed examination later in the day, it became clear that death might have occurred through strangulation by application of a ligature to the
neck.”
Cross-examined by Mr Shanks:
Q: “You said just now, that ‘death might have occurred by strangulation’. And yet you were not so reticent when you stated at the inquest that you were of the ‘firm
opinion that the man had been strangled to death’. Are you saying that you have changed your mind? Or that you were not really sure in the first place?”
A: “In retrospect, sir, I conclude that the amount of alcohol present in the body of the deceased could just as easily have caused death to occur. I do not, in retrospect, believe that
the marks to the neck, which were slight, corresponded with other, more conclusive, cases of death by strangulation that I have attended during my career.”
Carrick House. July 9, 1860.
Edward woke to the sound of a mistle thrush. Its song just beyond the window joined with the last of the dawn chorus. Lying there, listening to the burbling melody, he
remembered a comment of Gwen’s one morning; that the dawn chorus must be a wave of birdsong, as it moved from east to west, following the break of day in a relay of sound all over Europe,
perhaps even the world, as it turned on its axis; and then, at nightfall, the sound coming back as a kind of inverted echo, west to east, the pinking and chipping sounds announcing the end of the
day. Can you imagine, she’d said, if one could
see
it, as God must. It would be a tidal surge of sound, moving in an endless ripple of song across the globe.
His body felt clammy and cold; he shifted around under the covers and tried to plump up his pillow. He’d asked her where she had read this theory. Damn. That a mere girl should happen upon
a thought as profound as that. He’d taken her rather too roughly some minutes afterwards. And then when he had left her, he’d written down everything she had said in his notebook,
suffused with a surge of love.
There was the most God-awful smell in the room and the fust of mildew. The blankets felt heavy. He felt around underneath his hip for the hard object pressing against his skin. It slipped around
in the folds of the rucked-up bed sheet. Edward listened to the thrush for a short while, turning the object in his fingers, wondering about the best thing to do. He did not turn his head to the
left where he knew Gwen’s servant, Harris, lay sleeping next to him. By God, of all the things that had happened to him, waking up next to a dwarf had to be one of the most novel. The object
in his hand was about the size of a robin’s egg, its surface both smooth and pitted. He couldn’t think how a marble could have wound up in bed with him. But then, by the smell of the
room it had not been in use for a long time. He couldn’t stay there. He heard stifled strokes of a clock somewhere striking five. Getting into his clothes haphazardly, Edward skimmed over
what he could remember of the night before. He stuffed the marble into his waistcoat pocket. In the dim light he tried to check his own time against the chimes he thought he had counted. Edward
sighed heavily. Gwen would not be swayed, he thought, now that this had happened. The situation was only slightly better than if her servant had been dead.