The city of dr moreau, p.6
The City of Dr Moreau, page 6
“I found myself shipwrecked upon the island where he had been hiding out. And I saw for myself what manner of wild science he had there been practising. The hybridisation, gentlemen, of humankind with animals! The maniac desire to forge a new species. The creations of his which lurched upon the land and loomed along the shore.” He paused, took a deep breath and plunged on. “But I should begin at the beginning. If I’m to tell you my tale then you should surely hear it all.” He took a breath, steeled himself and said: “It began with the sinking of the Lady Vain when we were but ten days out from Callao…”
V
Prendick’s story was the longest that night, and certainly the strangest that had been heard in the Outpost for many years. By the end of it, his audience was entirely spellbound, relishing every twist, marvelling at the horrors that he described and wondering at the hubris of the madman at its heart who had sought to play god and transform a menagerie into a new kind of being. Although he was not a boastful man, the courage and resourcefulness of Prendick himself was clear. He had been brave and determined indeed to have lived for months upon the island, first sharing it with Moreau and his equally deranged assistant before, after their murder by his own creations, alongside the Beast People, as desperate to survive as they. His eventual escape, on a leaky and improvised boat he had constructed himself from windfall and debris, was thrillingly told.
When it was over, Prendick left the stage swiftly, perspiring and ill at ease, his face already showing signs of uncertainty as to the wisdom of making so full and frank a confession. This was not unusual at the Outpost and there was no tradition there of pausing after the speech for questions or applause.
The room was left in silence after Prendick’s departure (Mr Berry saw him slip towards the door) until the dapper man returned to the stage. “Time for a rest,” he said. “A chance to refill our glasses. For we have another pair of tales tonight. Though I do not envy having to be heard after Mr Prendick’s revelations…”
With relief, the room now stirred itself and rose. Mr Berry also got to his feet but he had no intention of staying. His eyes rested on where Prendick had been just a moment before.
The barman was at his side again, for all that he was surely much needed at his station. “Please,” he said. “I have to know. That man, Prendick. You said you recognised him?”
Mr Berry wanted to hurry after the tale-teller but there was something so beseeching in the eyes of the barman that he could not help but tarry. “He’s visited my employer,” he said, aware that confidentiality at the Outpost was absolute. “Many times. He’s been telling, I think, that same story he told to us tonight.”
“Your employer?” The barman was ignoring the clamour for refreshment from an increasing number of other patrons. “Why should Prendick have told him so much?”
Berry started now to move away. He had, he knew, to speak to Prendick. He called back briskly over his shoulder. “He’s a man called Vaughan,” he said. “An alienist. A kind of modern priest, I suppose. That is: a man who hears confessions.”
VI
Prendick had left the club, walked up the alleyway and was about to disappear towards the heart of Richmond when Mr Berry finally caught him.
“Wait!” the valet called out. He was still struggling to get on his overcoat, so rapid had been his departure from the Outpost.
Prendick did not turn but hurried on, his movements fretful and distracted.
Berry broke into a light jog in order to reach Prendick’s side.
“I’ve not got anything more,” said the blond man, not slowing his pace or acknowledging his pursuer in any way. “I told my story in full in there and I’m not even sure I should have done that. I know… that Mr Vaughan doesn’t think I ought to say…” He stopped now, Mr Prendick, and looked at Berry as though seeing him for the first time. “Wait. Don’t I know you?”
“I work for Mr Vaughan.”
“Of course. I’ve seen you there. Then what… what are you doing following me like this? I… Is this Vaughan’s doing?”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
In the distance, a clocktower tolled the time. Ten. It was dark and cold and the streets were almost empty. The two men gazed at each other, nervous and jumpy.
“Then why…” said Prendick.
“Is it true?” asked Mr Berry. “Everything you said?”
“Every word of it.”
“Then…” Mr Berry felt at this point that there was a great deal more which he could have said, based upon several years’ worth of observations concerning his employer. He could have told Prendick that the alienist was most certainly not the benign counsellor that he appeared to be. He could have said that his employer’s repeated advice to Prendick not to speak about his experiences was surely rooted in something other than unalloyed concern for a patient. He could even have told Prendick of certain of the other guests whose arrival at the house he had witnessed: the government men, the military men, the engineers, the financiers, the pleasure seekers and the artists, an unholy assemblage of individuals whose presence hinted at a scheme of the most elaborate kind. He could have told him that he had for many months now felt that he was, in his professional discretion, materially abetting something of troubling magnitude.
Yet, in the end, Mr Berry’s pride won out. He had given his word, after all, to his employer. That, from the first, had been the nature of their arrangement and he could not bring himself now to go against it.
“I suppose,” he said at last, “that I wished only to give you my greetings. And to thank you for your story. You have been very brave, I think.”
“Oh.” Prendick seemed almost disappointed by Berry’s words, as though he had divined something of the valet’s turmoil. “You’re kind. But I’ve really been nothing of the sort. There’s no real courage in survival. Just pure instinct.” With this, he nodded and went on, his gait that of an anxious man.
Mr Berry watched him go. He fought for an instant with the impulse to rush after him and tell him of all that he suspected. Yet the moment passed and the mariner walked on until he passed far out of sight of the valet.
VII
When Mr Berry returned home, to that big, ominous house in the city, he was somehow not surprised to see that a light burned in the master’s study. Nor was he surprised to hear the soft, potent voice of Vaughan call out to him as he trod by.
“Berry? Is that you? Would you be so kind as to step in here, please?”
The valet did as he was told. He entered the lavish but somehow rather chilly sanctum of his master to find Mr Vaughan sitting in his armchair with a book on his lap and a cigarette between his lips. He had evidently been smoking for some time for the room was filled with it, lending the space a distinctly Hadean air.
He waited at the threshold. “Yes, sir?”
The little man smiled. “So sorry to drag you in here like this. I know it’s late and your night off to boot.”
“No trouble, Mr Vaughan. What can I do for you?”
Vaughan sucked in the last of his cigarette, then ground it out in the ashtray by his seat. “I understand you were at the Outpost tonight and that you heard speak a mutual friend of ours.”
Mr Berry struggled to keep his voice altogether neutral. “Sir, I think I ought to–”
Vaughan cut him short with a gesture. “Please don’t trouble to deny it. I know that you were there. And I know what Mr Prendick related. No doubt you recognised him from the sessions in this house. And no doubt, being a brisk, clever and, above all, observant fellow, you have started to think of all that you have witnessed here and have begun to put two and two together. Am I in this correct?”
Berry saw no alternative but to speak the simple truth. “Yes, sir.”
“Poor Mr Prendick,” said Vaughan, scarcely acknowledging Mr Berry’s reply. “He simply cannot hold his tongue.”
The valet said nothing. Mr Vaughan seemed to gather himself and return his attention towards his employee.
“It seems I have a choice. I can, if you like, send you away from here tonight. I can give you a generous gift before you leave in exchange for your absolute silence and discretion. I can also send you away with a promise that if you breathe a word of what you know I will ruin you utterly. Would you like that, Mr Berry?”
“No, sir. I’m not sure I would, sir.”
“Very good. Then do you want to hear the alternative?”
“Of course, Mr Vaughan.”
“That you work for me more closely than ever. That you take on some new, additional duties.”
“Sir, I don’t know what to say…”
Mr Vaughan smiled and said nothing.
“My duties, sir, in this new arrangement, would they be different at all?”
“Oh much as they are, Berry. Much as they are. Though I suppose there might, from time to time, be something slightly more robust that’s required of you.”
“Robust, sir?”
Vaughan reached for another cigarette, put it in his mouth, lit it and inhaled. “You’ll see in time,” he said eventually. “Suffice to say that there’ll be nothing which isn’t well within your capabilities. So then, what do you say? You know me well enough by now, I think, to know that I’m nothing if not a plain-dealing man.”
Mr Berry was far from sure that this was the case.
“Whatever you decide, I shan’t hold it against you,” the alienist went on. “You have my word. So what will it be?”
In the end, Mr Berry found it very easy to give his answer. And he did not regret it either, at least not at first, not until the complete truth began to emerge.
2ND OCTOBER, 1890
LONDON
I
As we have seen, Mr Vaughan was a creature first and foremost of stillness. There was something distinctly feline not only in his movements, which were ever lithe and precise, but in his ability for motionlessness, a facility for calm waiting that befits any predator, however outwardly domesticated. And so the hour of five o’clock on this particular afternoon found the alienist in a pose which might almost have been designed to typify these tendencies.
He sat in his study, surrounded by his shelves and trinkets (a statuette of a mongoose locked in battle with a serpent; an old trophy from his schooldays awarded for public speaking; a jewelled box of murky colonial origin), with curtains drawn against the encroaching night. The air smelled still of tobacco, though Mr Vaughan was attempting now to curb his habit, having in recent days become convinced of its toxicity. There was the loud metronomic ticking of the clock which would have struck many as a distraction but which Mr Vaughan found to be a source of comfort on the grounds of its absolute predictability. He scarcely noticed the ticking, however, as, leaning forwards very slightly in his chair, he listened to two low voices in the corridor beyond.
The first voice belonged to his manservant, Berry, a fellow whose conduct to date (in spite of one minor infelicity) had never given the alienist the least cause to regret his hiring.
“It’s a pleasure to see you again, sir,” the servant was saying, in a tone of apparent deference.
“Likewise,” said the second voice, which Vaughan knew to belong to the visitor, a certain regular client of his. There was an audible quality of strain in the tones of the guest, a common symptom in Vaughan’s experience, in those who had undergone great and sustained trauma. “A very considerable pleasure to encounter you again, Mr…” He coughed to hide his evident awkwardness.
“Berry,” said the valet.
“Yes, of course.”
The visitor paused. He lowered his voice, becoming muffled and all but inaudible.
Stealthily, Mr Vaughan rose to his feet and stole towards the door. His hearing was sufficiently acute to hear now, at this distance, the words that were being spoken in the corridor beyond.
“Did you tell him?” the visitor was asking. “Did you tell him what I said?”
There was detectable in the fellow’s voice a quality of what was, at the least, disquiet, if not of outright fear. At this realisation, a frisson passed through the alienist, a quality of electricity, which brought neither pleasure nor pain but a weaving together of the two.
“Mr Vaughan and I share a most gratifying relationship of master and servant,” Berry said, “one which, I am very proud to say, contains a considerable degree of mutual respect. He does not pry into my life whilst I make it a point of principle never to notice those parts of his which do not affect my own duties and responsibilities.”
The visitor’s voice, sombre and sincere: “Berry, answer me truly, did you tell that man in there anything of what you heard at the Outpost?”
There came a long pause.
“Berry. This is important. He has to hear it only from me. I’ll ask you again – did you tell him?”
Some prissy throat clearing, then: “I’m a man of discretion, sir. You must know that. It would not behove me to–”
“Berry!”
Now there came the sound of sudden movement, a noisy thump against the wall, a stifled cry from the manservant and an expostulation from the visitor.
Vaughan waited just for a moment, curious as to how much more of his temper the beleaguered gentleman outside might yet lose.
Hearing nothing further, the alienist opened the door and stepped smartly out into the hallway. There the visitor, Mr Edward Prendick, was holding the manservant by his lapels, having lifted the fellow some inches off the ground.
Vaughan cocked an eyebrow, quietly appreciative of his physical strength.
“Would you care to place my manservant back upon solid ground, Mr Prendick?”
The visitor glared at Vaughan. Unspeaking, he put Berry down and stepped back. He was breathing heavily, Vaughan noticed, and his pupils had expanded. Fourteen separate other indications suggested a heightened state of distress.
Vaughan smiled soothingly. “If you’d be so kind as to step this way, Mr Prendick, I believe that we have a good deal to discuss.”
II
Prendick settled awkwardly into the large and exceedingly comfortable leather chair upon which Mr Vaughan invited all of his clients to sit. That it was several inches shorter and squatter than Vaughan’s own was, of course, no accident; the alienist beamed down at his subject with an air of exaggerated magnanimity.
“I feel that I ought to apologise,” the visitor began.
Vaughan waved away this predictable speech. “Pray do not speak of it. No-one knows better than I the all but intolerable strain under which you have of late been labouring. Besides, between the two of us, Mr Berry can so often be a thoroughly exasperating individual.”
At the finish of this second sentence, Vaughan heard from without a motion at the door: the valet, learning anew the old lesson about the inadvisability of eavesdropping.
Prendick managed a quick, nervous, harried smile. “I suppose you must be curious as to the cause of our dispute?”
“Absolutely not.”
“No?”
“The casus belli is of no concern to me whatever. A small disagreement between men, that is all, and one which is easily ended. So come now. Let us speak of weightier matters. I wish to know of your troubles lately. Has there been any resurgence of… the old thoughts?”
Prendick hesitated, tilting his head in a posture of contemplation. “Not particularly,” he said at last, obviously mendacious in the practised eyes of the specialist. “It’s been a period of no particular import, utterly without disruption.” Each word compounded the lie.
Vaughan, although he gave no outward reaction of any kind, seethed inwardly.
III
After Prendick had finished speaking in a desultory manner, of the modest trials of the days gone by, avoiding the truth throughout, Mr Vaughan said how pleased he was at this progress.
“I owe it to you,” said Prendick. “You’ve allowed me to conquer my demons, or at least to hold them at bay.”
“Then that is my privilege,” said Vaughan, apparently with feeling.
“But I think it’s time now, sir, to stop.” Prendick looked a little flustered at this admission. His breath was coming more quickly than before and his posture suggested that he believed there to be some conflict imminent, that the alienist would attempt to push back against his desire.
According to a stratagem which had served him well for all of his life, Vaughan elected to provide the unexpected and to give the man the very opposite of that which he feared.
“I am so very glad,” he said, “to see that you’ve reached this decision and come to such a conclusion. Glad and – if you’ll forgive a moment’s sentiment – very proud of you too.”
“You are?” Prendick could not keep his surprise from inflecting the timbre of his voice.
“That surprises you, I think.”
“Yes, yes. I suppose it does. I suppose I had thought…” He said no more, colouring slightly.
Vaughan spread wide his hands, palms outwards – his politician’s gesture. “Please. Let us have no secrets here. Let us say only what is on our minds and let us be frank, clear and candid.”
“Well then,” Prendick said. “In that case… I suppose I thought that you had taken something of an interest in me, and in my story.”
“I have. Most certainly. You are my client, after all.”
“I mean a more than professional interest. An… anthropological one, if you like. A scientific one.”
“That may be true. Yours is, after all, amongst the most remarkable accounts of our age. I could hardly fail to be greatly intrigued by what you have told me. But this is merely my curiosity speaking. Mr Prendick, I am not an investigator. I am a healer. And it brings me nothing but joy to see today that you are healed. Not by my words or actions – I ought upon that point to be emphatic – but by your own. I have given you the tools to ensure your own survival; to see you wield them now with such aplomb is the cause of all my pride.”
Vaughan who, although he often permitted others to think of him as inscrutable, had always rather enjoyed speechifying, stopped himself here, concerned that he had gone too far. The man upon the chair beside him, however, seemed both satisfied and relieved.
