The Specimen (22 page)

Isobel sank into herself as she closed her eyes again. Susan turned away and busied herself with the coal bucket; she didn’t want Mrs Scales to hear her weeping.

Cornwall. March 6, 1861.

Susan showed a small, dark-veiled figure into the morning room. Euphemia sat with her back to the sun; the room was warming up already. The little woman positioned herself
neatly opposite Euphemia. Both of them waited: Euphemia waited for the woman to lift her veil; Natalia Jaspur waited for Miss Carrick to speak.

When the carriage had drawn up outside, Euphemia had been pretending that she had not been up all night. She had begun eating a soft-boiled egg as Susan had rushed excitedly into the
dining-room.

“Visitors, ma’am.”

“Are you sure? It’s barely eight.”

“It’s a right grand carriage, ma’am. Four-horser.”

“Horses, Susan.”

“Shall I ask them to wait, ma’am?”

“No. I’ll receive them in the morning room, whoever they are.”

Euphemia had bolted the last bit of egg and now it was repeating on her. Natalia Jaspur was the first to speak.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Miss Carrick, at this hour, but I have spent a good deal of time trying to locate you and I do not have much left.”

Euphemia strained to hear every syllable correctly; the woman’s voice seemed to be a hotchpotch of different influences. She cleared her throat quietly. “My usual hours for Contact
are more frequently held in the evening, but I am sure if we were to draw the curtains—” Her hands had become clammy.

“I am not interested in Spiritualism, Miss Carrick. And, if I were, there is no one I would wish to contact. No, the reason I have looked for you is this.” She produced a piece of
flimsy paper from a small beaded pouch hanging at her wrist. “It was discovered by one of my staff and brought to my attention. I see from the look on your face you are a little confused. It
is a personal advertisement from the pages of the
Evening Standard
. It bears my name, and also the name of a person I was once in acquaintance with. This is quite old.” She flapped
the cutting. “My housekeeper likes to waste nothing; it was packaging, but that is not interesting to you at all. I made enquiries to the offices of that paper which has eventually led me
here.”

Euphemia’s mind was in turmoil and her stomach threatened to dispose of her egg. “You believe I may be of assistance in some way?”

“The person mentioned along with my name on this paper—that person was not the person who placed the advertisement. It is a delicate matter. I wish to contact the person who
did.”

“Being?”

“Miss Carrick, I do not have time for obfuscation. I would very much appreciate it if you would let me know the whereabouts of Mr Edward Scales.”

“I did have the pleasure of meeting Mr Scales on one occasion, some months ago—just before he departed on a trip, an excursion overseas.”

“Very good. You will give me his address.”

Euphemia swallowed. “Mr Scales left no forwarding address. Perhaps his family—I believe they reside in London.”

“I have been there. It is shut. Someone in that house died. The rest have gone.”

“Then I, I can help you no further.”

“Miss Carrick, if you please. I do know, for instance, that Mr Scales went to Brazil to catch butterflies and put snakes and other creatures in bottles, and I know that your sister, Miss
Gwen Carrick, is an artist who travelled with him. I know that, despite differences, your sister will have sent a letter by now detailing her particulars of residence in that country.”
Natalia Jaspur breathed heavily after this, and her thick black veil moved a little. “I have no time to play any games with you, Miss Carrick. I am sure your sister is an honourable woman. I
will leave you my card, in case you remember where you have put your sister’s letters.” She stuffed the folded piece of newspaper back into her purse and produced a small, white card,
which she placed with a snap onto an occasional table. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must leave this moment to be in good time. The drive back to Exeter is tedious. I will see myself
out.” She stood up to leave. “Good day to you, Miss Carrick.”

The sunshine had brought out a sweat on Euphemia. She wiped her face and neck, and waited until she was satisfied that there had been a crunching of wheels and the woman had gone. She eyed the
card left by Natalia Jaspur for a few seconds then picked it up and took it to the study where she chose a book at random and slipped the card between its pages. That this strange, dark little
woman had been right there in the morning room was not in itself the most extraordinary thing. If only she could find that missing book; Euphemia felt, for the first time in her life, that she had
been speaking to a ghost.
Someone in that house died
. She went to look for Susan. The kitchen door was wide open to the morning, and Susan was on her knees cleaning the flagstones.
Euphemia spoke to Susan’s backside as it wagged back and forth with the effort of scrubbing.

“Spring is here then, Susan.”

“Yes, ma’am, and about time, too.” Susan did not stop scrubbing.

“I’d like a cup of tea, and some more toast. You can bring it up to my room.”

Susan’s shoulders sagged momentarily, but she did not stop scrubbing.

Edward awoke in his hammock one April morning not knowing if he should concern himself over Mr Coyne’s attention to Gwen. God knows, he thought, how physically lacking in
seductive charm she had become in her present state.

Edward had seen Mr Coyne coming away from the house and walking down the road towards the town. He’d waited for her to mention it, and when he’d asked her how her day had gone
she’d said that it had been quiet enough. Gwen still did not mention Coyne over the next couple of days, and he decided to leave it alone.

Sometimes, he imagined himself telling her that he made it all up. It was different each time. Sometimes, she laughed, and said that she knew and told him not to be a silly. Other times, his
mind played out something violent. Gwen threw objects. Ripped up her work. Shouted. Or she packed her things quietly and calmly into her small trunk and left. When his thoughts ran this way he
fixed on telling her the moment he next saw her. Things got in the way. She would be talking to Maria, or asleep.

Gwen did not talk about Natalia Jaspur to Edward. He was thankful for this. The idea of the two of them discussing her at length was too disturbing to contemplate. Edward thought that he must
remove himself from the torment of it and the painful silence of avoidance in the house during the evenings after Maria had gone home to her own family.

Pemberton had told him about a small place, a village one day’s walk away where he would find Morpho rhetenor. Perhaps, he reasoned, he should go there for a while. The thought of the
rhetenor’s alluring blue metallic sheen quickened his stomach.

He’d lingered longer than usual over his coffee and biscuit. As he readied himself, Maria arrived with the day’s provisions and handed him a letter.

“I’ve brought you some American pork, Mr Scales, it came in yesterday. Won’t you eat before you go?”

Edward wavered on the threshold at the thought of bacon. “Thank you Maria, but it will be better for the waiting, I should think.”

“Letter from home, Mr Scales?”

Edward looked at the postmark and the writing. It was addressed to him and was from Cornwall. The hand was not his wife’s, though certainly female. There were careful flourishes all over
the envelope. He inspected the seal on the reverse, which was also flamboyant and depicted a ship with a “C” curled around it. He put the letter inside his knapsack next to the killing
jars waiting for the post-breakfast entomological ramble. He hitched his collecting bag over his shoulder, picked up the birding gun and bid his perfunctory farewell to Maria. Gwen was still
asleep.

Waiting for Maria to cook the bacon, Gwen noticed Edward’s knapsack on the verandah. She picked it up, imagining it slung over her own back. Tucked in with the jars, she
saw the letter and pulled it out. She looked at the fancy handwriting which she recognised at once as Susan’s. Her fantasy evaporated.

Gwen had often found discarded or forgotten lists of things to do and things to buy, scrawled carefully by Susan. Sometimes the lists were personal, and sometimes for the house. She turned the
letter over, thinking how long Susan must have practised to get her handwriting so neat. She looked at the seal. Susan must have been rummaging in the library bureau to have found that old thing.
Gwen smiled at Susan addressing the letter to Edward, in an attempt to be proper. Gwen knew that the letter inside would be meant for her.

She tapped the letter on her knuckles before deciding not to open it. She would wait until Edward came back. She left the knapsack on its proper hook on the wall and replaced the letter inside.
All through breakfast the thought of Susan’s letter took precedence over everything else until Maria asked her what was wrong.

Curupíra
, the wild man of the forest, mysterious being with various attributes: Edward recalled Gus Pemberton’s description as he headed down the road
towards the forest paths. He stopped himself from turning to look behind. Sometimes, he heard noises which he supposed might be attributable to the
Curupíra
. Gus Pemberton and
Edward had discussed the propensity of primitive peoples to find unnatural causes to occurrences for which they could not account. Or, rather, after the disagreeable beginning to the conversation,
Edward had listened to Gus Pemberton’s ideas whilst trying to listen with half an ear to what Gwen had been saying to Vincent inside and wondering at the extreme effrontery of the man in
turning up like that.

Now, though, as he walked, he heard only Natalia: “You are as curious to me as I am to you. Sometimes I have asked myself: why does a man with a pretty blonde wife spend so many of his
hours here? And before my question is finished I answer myself. The two sides of my head in conversation.” She breathed deeply at her own convenience which coincided with Edward’s hand
slipping between her thighs. “Because I remind you of what you are not and what your wife is not. It is simple, I think. You confirm our own place in this world by putting yourself inside me.
You say nothing. This is because I am right. It is the same with all the people who must come to hear me sing and assure themselves. Your curiosity has never been any different to those faceless
people, dropping coins, dropping their jaws at me. I am a freak; yes, I can say this word; but are you not a freak also?”

At the window a fly had buzzed; Natalia had risen from the bed and crossed the room to kill it. Edward watched her. Her backlit outline glowed in the dirty room at three in the afternoon. He had
not cared that she mentioned his wife. That she knew her hair colour did not concern him. Perhaps one night he had told her, after too many glasses of stout. It did not matter, Edward was immersed.
Natalia climbed back onto the bed with her fist closed over the fy. Its muted buzzing against her skin sounded in Edward’s ear as he pushed her legs apart with his knee.

Now, the insects in the forest air butted his conscience, the high-pitched whine mirrored the protracted death of the bluebottle in Natalia’s fist.

In the next moment, Edward’s brief return from Lyme Regis to London filled his mind; the pile of letters, opened at random and scanned through, revealing nothing but that which he knew to
already have been said or not said, left burning in the grate of his attic room at the hotel.