The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(6)
Montgomery was used to meaner stuff, to aguardiente. The thimble of liqueur was not his drink of choice. But he would never turn a spirit away. It was his curse. So he downed it with a swift twist of the wrist and set the glass back on a circular ceramic tray.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Laughton. I’m told you are from Manchester? An important city, very large these days.”
“I haven’t been in Manchester in a long time, sir. But yes,” Montgomery said.
“I was also given to understand you have some interest and experience in engineering and are also equipped with a grasp of the biological sciences. If I may say so, you seem a tad young.”
“I am twenty-nine as I stand before you today, which perhaps you may think young, though I might protest at such a claim. As for my experience, I left home at fifteen with the intent of learning a trade and took a ship to La Habana, where my uncle maintained various types of machinery. I became a maquinista, as they call it there.”
He left out the reason why he’d abandoned England: his father’s insidious beatings. The old man had also possessed an affinity for liquor. Sometimes Montgomery thought it was a vile affliction, transmitted through the blood. Or a curse, even though he didn’t believe in curses. But if that was the case, then his family had also transmitted to him their easy way with machinery. His father had understood cotton machinery, belts and pulleys and boilers. His uncle, he knew, too, the way of machines, and young Montgomery had been more fascinated by the motion of a lever than any toy or game.
“How long were you in Cuba?”
“Nine years in the Caribbean, in total. Cuba, Dominica, several other places.”
“Did you fare well there?”
“Well enough.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I’ve moved around frequently. British Honduras suited me for a few years. Now I’m here.”
He wasn’t the only one who’d made such a trek. There were a motley group of Europeans and Americans crowding this part of the world. He’d seen ex-Confederates who’d fled south after the Civil War in the United States come to an end. The bulk of those Confederados were now in Brazil, attempting to establish new settlements, but others had gathered in British Honduras. There were Germans left over from Maximilian’s failed imperial efforts and British merchants plying their goods. There were Black Caribs from Saint Vincent and other islands who spoke excellent French, mulatto laborers who extracted chicle and others who chopped mahogany, the Maya who held tight to settlements by the coast, and the dzules like Lizalde. The upper crust Mexicans, the Lizaldes of the peninsula, would often claim a pure, white ascendancy and some of them were indeed fairer than Montgomery, blue-and green-eyed and mightily proud of this fact.
Montgomery had chosen British Honduras and then Mexico not because of their natural riches, though there were opportunities to be had, and not because this vibrant collage of people attracted him, but simply because he did not wish to return to the cold and the fires that crackled at night in tiny rooms that reminded him of his mother’s death and afterward of Elizabeth’s demise, too. Fanny couldn’t understand it. To her England meant civilization, and his aversion for colder climates struck her as unnatural.
“Tell him about the animals,” Lizalde said, lazily waving his hand in Montgomery’s direction, like a man commanding a dog to do a trick. “Montgomery is a hunter.”
“Are you, Mr. Montgomery? You enjoy the sport?” Moreau asked, sitting down on the chair he’d been occupying before they walked in. He twisted his mouth into a faint smile.
Montgomery sat, too, on one of the settees—all the furniture was in need of a good reupholstering—one elbow on the armrest, his rifle set aside but within easy reach. Lizalde remained standing by the mantelpiece, examining the delicate clock set there.
“I do not do it for sport, but I’ve made a living at it for the past few years. I procure specimens for institutions and naturalists. I then embalm the specimens and prepare them and ship them back to Europe.”
“Then you are familiar with biological matters and certain lab items, taxidermy requiring it.”
“Yes, although I wouldn’t pretend to be formally schooled in this matter.”
“Yet you don’t enjoy it? Many men hunt for the mere thrill of seeing a beautiful animal mounted and stuffed.”
“If you mean to ask if I’d rather have ten dead birds than ten live ones, then no, I don’t enjoy the dead specimens. I am not looking for feathers to pluck and would rather let them lie upon the breast of a scarlet tanager than see them on a lady’s fine hat. But biological sciences being what they are, you need those ten birds and not just one.”
“How is that so?”
Montgomery leaned forward, restless. His clothes were rumpled and a trickle of sweat was running down his neck. He wanted nothing more than to roll his sleeves up to his elbows and splash cold water on his face, yet here he was being interviewed for the job without the courtesy of sparing him five minutes to tidy himself.
“When you are trying to take a look at the world you must make a thorough look of it. If I were to capture one specimen and send it back to London, people might take it as the one and only model of the organism, which would be incorrect since, at the very least, male and female birds often differ to a striking degree.
“So I must send male and female specimens, smaller and bigger ones, scrawny and plump, and attempt to provide a varied sample of their morphology so that the zoologists will arrive at an understanding of the species in question. That is, if I’ve done my job well and provided accurate specimens and the notes that must go with them. I am looking for the essence of the bird.”