The Essex Serpent(26)



‘Certainly not. I hate walking. Besides, I have here a report of a Scottish surgeon who is convinced he can relieve paralysis by the exertion of pressure on the spinal column – I think often, you know, that I would have been better off in Edinburgh than in London: there is such courage there among medical men, and the miserable climate suits me …’ Spencer and the castle already forgotten, Garrett sat cross-legged on the bed and spread before him a dozen sheets of fine black type punctuated with drawings of vertebrae. Spencer, a little relieved to be granted an afternoon’s solitude, buttoned up his coat, and left.

The George Hotel was a fine white inn that overlooked the broad High Street. The proprietors plainly fancied their position as the best establishment in town, and displayed these credentials by means of a thicket of hanging-baskets in which daffodils and primroses jostled bad-temperedly for space. The day was fine, as if the sky regretted the slow release of winter’s grip: the high clouds hurried on to pressing business in another town. Ahead, the spire of St Nicholas glittered, and there was a great deal of birdsong. Spencer, who could differentiate between a sparrow and a magpie only if pressed, found himself bewildered and delighted by it, and by the whole merry town with bright striped awnings above the pavements and cherry blossom speckling the sleeve of his coat. When he encountered a ruined house, and at its threshold a crippled man seated like a sentinel off-guard, this too seemed to him a charming sight: the house displayed an interior gone over to ivy and saplings of oak, and the cripple had taken off his coat to bask like a cat in eddies of light.

The embarrassment of his riches made Spencer absurdly generous, and wanting to share a little of the day’s joy he emptied his pockets into the man’s upturned hat. The weight of the coins dented the shabby felt; the man raised it level with his eyes, peering as if suspecting a practical joke, then, evidently satisfied, bared a row of superb teeth in a grin. ‘Looks like I can knock off for the day then, don’t it?’ He reached behind his stone perch for a low wooden trolley on four iron wheels, and with a practised movement swung himself into it, and drawing on a pair of leather gauntlets to protect his palms propelled himself deftly towards the pavement. The trolley, Spencer saw, was extremely well-made, with designs of knot-work cut into it: a Celtic warrior felled in battle might have been content with such a vehicle, so that whatever natural pity he might have felt for the man’s infirmity seemed an affront.

‘Fancy a look, then?’ With a lift of his chin the man indicated the gaping ruin of the house behind, conveying the impression that he held authority over its broken walls. ‘Worst of the earthquake, this, and a danger to life and limb if you ask me, which no-one ever does; but there’s such a wrangling in the law courts they can’t settle who’s to foot the bill, and meanwhile there’s barn owls in the dining room.’ Negotiating a pair of fallen marble slabs on which the remains of Roman lettering were gathering moss, the man led Spencer to the threshold of the house. Much of the front wall had sheared away, leaving the rooms and staircases exposed. Nothing was left but what could not be reached or looted: the lower floors were empty, save for immense carpets in which violets had seeded themselves and grew dense as a mattress, concealing coy blue flowers. On the upper levels paintings and trinkets remained: something silver glinted on the windowsill and at the head of the staircase a chandelier’s crystal drops might have been polished that morning for the night’s events.

‘Quite a sight, isn’t it? Look on my works ye mighty and despair, and what have you.’

‘You ought really to sell tickets at the door,’ said Spencer, hoping to spot the barn owl: ‘Surely every passer-by wants a look.’

‘They do, Mr Spencer: but they are not always given it.’ This voice was not a man’s, soft with Essex vowels and coming from below, but was that of a woman, and a London one at that. Spencer would’ve known it anywhere, and when he turned away from the ruin he knew he was blushing, but could not prevent it.

‘Martha. You are here.’

‘And so, I see, are you; and you’ve met my old friend?’ Martha reached down, smiling, and grasped the cripple’s hand. He shook it, and shook also his well-filled hat – ‘Enough here for a leg or two, I reckon!’; then with a gesture of farewell began to wheel himself home.

‘There is no barn owl. He only says it to please the tourists.’

‘Well: it certainly pleased me.’

‘Everything pleases you, Spencer!’ She wore a blue jacket, and over her shoulder hung a leather bag from which protruded several peacock’s feathers. In her left hand she held a white magazine, and on it Spencer saw An Englishwoman’s Review of Social and Industrial Questions printed in elaborate black type. Trying his hand at gallantry, he said, ‘Well: seeing you pleases me, at least,’ but of all women Martha was the last to approve such a ploy. She raised an eyebrow, and rolling up the magazine struck him on the arm.

‘Enough of all that: come and see Cora. She’ll be so glad you came. The Imp is with you, I suppose?’

‘He is reading up on paralysis, and what to do about it, but he’ll join us later.’

‘Good: I want to speak to you about something’ – she shook the magazine – ‘and it is impossible to be serious about anything with that man in the room. How was the journey?’

‘A child cried from Liverpool Street to Chelmsford, and only stopped when Garrett told him he’d lose all the water from his body, shrivel up, and be dead by Manningtree.’

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