Authors: Stephen Curran
“And how long has this been going on for?”
Covering her face, she began to cry. Waiting for her to collect herself I took the opportunity to examine a painting that hung over the fireplace, depicting a location I was certain I recognised but was unable to place: a packhorse bridge over a quiet river, backgrounded by trees.
“It has been difficult for me also, Doctor Renfield,” she said at last, when she had regained her composure.
“I understand.”
“Since my husband was forced to give up his legal practice life has been nothing but a struggle for us. It is only a matter of time before our savings run out. The servants are unhappy working in such an environment, with their employer nowhere to be seen. I worry they will seek alternative employment and leave me unable to find replacements. People on the street stare at me, Doctor Renfield. They are cold and unkind. They must know what has befallen us. It is barely tolerable.”
My attention was again drawn by the painting. It irritated me that I could not place the scene. Pulling myself away from this distraction I addressed the matter at hand: “In my experience, which I can assure you is considerable, those suffering from melancholia are often prone to setbacks. These relapses can be distressing and disheartening, but they are also transitory. We must not let them waylay us.”
It was decided we should go upstairs to see the patient. Mr Utterson's room was situated on the third floor, at the end of a long corridor lined with what seemed to me to be an excessive number of flower bouquets. The lady of the house led the way, hesitating at the door before living it a gentle knock. The sound of hurried movement came from within: a chair sliding across the floor, a drawer pushed closed, followed by Mr Utterson's voice: “Is that you, May?”
“Yes, Charles. Doctor Renfield is with me. Please unlock the door; he has come to see you.”
“I will not be receiving visitors today.”
I kept my voice low to prevent the occupant from hearing: “How is he able to lock the door?”
“He has a key.”
“This must be taken from him as soon as possible. It could be dangerous. Explain that he may close the door if he wishes, but it must remain unlocked at all times.”
Something brushed against my trouser leg. Looking down I saw the grey kitten from the front garden, vying again for my attention.
Mrs Utterson gave another knock: “He has come all the way from Marylebone. You remember I mentioned he would come?”
“Of course I remember. Kindly stop talking to me as if I'm a child.”
“Please, Charles. He has come a long way.”
“Then I'm afraid he has wasted his time.”
“Don't embarrass me, please. Open the door.”
After a few moments the keys turns in the lock.
The kitten entered before me. Inside the air was tropically hot and pungent with cigar smoke. Thick green velvet curtains were drawn over the window, starving everything of sunlight. Evidently the room, now containing an unmade bed, had once served as a study. Two of the walls were lined with shelves crammed with books. Opposite the window hung a sombre piece of tapestry representing Cleopatra cradling an asp, beneath which sat an ornate writing desk. A cheroot smouldered in its ashtray.
His back half turned to us, the man of the house made a show of trying to locate some misplaced volume. Even at first glance it was obvious he was a person who placed no particular value on physical robustness, what with his underdeveloped limbs, greyish complexion and pronounced pot belly. I cast an eye across the shelf where he stood, displaying a selection of texts with which I was familiar – Percy, Chatterton, and Burger – along with a title I did not recognise:
Arcana Caelestia
by Emmanuel Swedenborg.
I asked Mrs Utterson if she would leave us alone.
“Certainly,” she replied. “I will wait for you downstairs.”
The lawyer continued his search as if oblivious to my presence. Taking a position in the centre of the room I asked why he did not open the curtains.
“I am perfectly happy as I am,” came the quietly spoken reply. Moving a few steps along the shelves he lifted his hand to select something, and then thought better of it. I placed a finger under my nostrils to block out the stale stench of countless cigars, understanding now why the corridor outside contained such an abundance of strongly scented flowers. The ceiling and the tops of the walls were tobacco stained, a yellowish colour like a London fog.
“Do you not find it difficult to read in so little light?”
“I much prefer it this way. It helps me concentrate.”
“You'll strain your eyes. Besides, it does no good to surround yourself in gloom.”
Mr Utterson put his hands behind his back and looked down at the floor. “Honestly, Doctor Renfield, we both know you're only her out of a sense of obligation. Is all this necessary? You are keeping me from my studies.”
Reaching over the makeshift bed I pulled the curtains open, tugging at the hooks where they stuck along the track.
“Doctor Renfield!”
“'
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies
. First Corinthians, but I'm sure you already knew that. Open the windows. Move around. Take some air.”
The kitten emerged from the crumpled bedding, mewing pathetically. Dust motes spun in the sunlight. Mr Utterson, I realised, had been using his theatrical search for a book to move farther away from me, towards the corner of the room. Shielding his eyes he muttered something under his breath. Ignoring it I asked what subject he was studying.
“You wouldn't understand.”
“You would do well not to underestimate me, sir.”
“It's not a question of underestimating you. I am taking steps into a unique field of science, something completely new. Comprehending even the smallest part of it would require years of deep and diligent reading.”
“What kind of science?”
“There's no point in attempting to put it into words, and even if I thought I could describe the concept in a way that you could grasp, I still wouldn't share it. The whole thing is too dangerous and demands to be handled with the greatest of care. It changes everything. It changes the way we see man's place in the universe. All I can tell you for sure is that everything you currently believe is wrong.”
Out of curiosity I stepped forward and plucked
Arcana Caelestia
from its place in the centre of the row. It was a fine edition, bound in a natty livery, with its pages separated here and there by torn slips of paper. I opened it at one of the marked passages. The text was in Latin but I was able to translate a few lines without much trouble: “
When a man's interior sight is opened, which is that of his spirit, then there appear things of another life, which cannot possibly be made visible to the bodily sight..
.”
All at once I became disagreeably light-headed and queasy, no doubt a result of breathing in the thickly polluted air. Replacing the book, I thanked Mr Utterson for his time and hurried out with the kitten trotting along beside me. As soon as I crossed the threshold I heard the rumble of footsteps and the door slammed shut. Pausing for a moment I filled my lungs with the cleansing aroma of the flowers before heading down the stairs.
When I reached the first floor I became aware of a faint clicking sound coming from behind a door that had been left slightly ajar, as if someone was snapping their fingers to draw my attention. I was, of course, somewhat reluctant to investigate further, fearful of intruding on some private domestic scene. However the thought struck me that this, perhaps, was where Mrs Utterson meant when she told me she would be waiting 'downstairs'. Receiving no reply when I knocked, I pushed the door slowly open. To my astonishment, I found the elegantly decorated bedroom to be silent and unoccupied. I pulled the door closed and continued down the stairs.
Mrs Utterson was waiting for me in the hallway on the ground floor.
“Remove his books,” I told her. “His fixation with them is unhealthy. Their presence aggravates his condition. And ensure his windows are kept open for at least a few hours a day. The fresh air will do him good.”
She looked disappointed: “Is that all you can advise?”
“For the moment, yes. Trust me, it will help. I am an expert.”
Leaving the house I declined the use of the landau and chose to make my way to the station on foot, hoping to rid my clothes of the stink of stale tobacco.
Magdalene in the Trees
JOURNEYING home to Marylebone I shared my train carriage with a wispy-haired gentleman who attempted to engage me in conversation. Stuttering over every second word he struggled his way through predictable comments on the expense of his ticket, the unseasonable weather, the women's suffrage movement. After providing a few cursory replies I took my copy of the
Pall Mall Gazette
from my bag and hid myself behind its open pages, trying to concentrate on its contents but finding myself unable to do so. My thoughts continued to be taken up by the landscape painting that hung above the Utterson's mantle. Why was I unable to place the location?
I had been staring blankly at the newspaper for a matter of minutes when the answer finally came to me: it was a depiction of an old stone bridge that spanned a narrow stretch of the River Esk, a few miles from the house I had shared with my uncle from the age of twelve. While it was true the painting was somewhat clumsily executed I was nonetheless amazed it took me so long to recognise the subject. I had spent more days there than I could count.
On these summer trips I was invariably accompanied by my uncle's friend Oscar and his daughter Magdalene, a girl roughly the same age as I with dark eyes and wavy black hair. After picking me up from my house in the mid-morning the three of us would travel together in their family's coach to our favourite secluded spot. It was a journey I could still recall decades later, with undimmed clarity: Magdalene by my side, Oscar sitting opposite us and fiddling with his enormous beard, the horse's hooves clopping against the track ahead. It was our habit to list the familiar landmarks as they passed the window: a red pillar box, a small village shop displaying jars of sweets, a row of cottages painted a brilliant white. Part of the road wound along the crest of a deep valley, giving us a spectacular view of a dense wood on the far side. All of this still felt new to me, having spent most of my life up to this point in the missionary settlement in Ceylon, and the countryside of Yorkshire seemed almost impossibly beautiful.
Our imminent arrival at our destination was signalled by a sudden downward slope, steep enough for me to quietly take hold of the door handle in fear of the horses losing control and tipping the coach over. At the foot of the hill we disembarked and climbed over a fence stile, leaving our vehicle behind to cross the grassy field and lay out our picnic.
The river at this point was somewhat narrow, thirty feet wide at the most, with steep bare banks. The bridge spanning it was at least a few hundred years old, its moss covered path leading from the field over to woodland on the other side. It was Oscar's preference – while Magdalene and I paddled or skimmed stones - to stretch his huge legs out in the long grass and flick through whatever books he had bought with him. Sometimes he would call us to his side and read aloud from a passage that he found particularly stirring. The headmaster of a small school for day boys, he was an educator by inclination as well as by profession. What I remember most vividly about him is his smell: his smell, and his enormous beard. It was as if he had passed so many days in libraries that the dusty, musty odour of the paper had permanently permeated his skin, as indelibly as a tattoo.
One burning and muggy afternoon I recall he drifted into a comfortable slumber on the blanket while Magdalene and I picked quietly at the grass by the riverside. I had fallen into a preoccupied mood that I seemed unable to shake despite my best efforts: I had been greatly looking forward to the trip and was annoyed with myself for being incapable of enjoying it. Evidently Magdalene found my lack of engagement equally frustrating: “Why are you being so boring today?”
It shocked me to hear her speak so abruptly, especially within earshot of an adult, even if he was sleeping one. When we first met she had been reluctant to speak at all, hiding behind her father and keeping her voice low. Now she was changing, growing in confidence. When we were alone together she was capable of becoming quite domineering.
Too proud to admit she was right – I
was
being boring - I stared at the clumps of grass in my hands, pretending I had not heard.
“Let's do something,” she said. “Let's go paddling.”
Keen to kill my despondency, I suppressed my instincts and agreed. Climbing down the steep bank we supported ourselves by resting our hands against the bridge's masonry then removed our shoes at the river's edge. At first the water was breathtakingly cold but we soon became accustomed to it. On our last visit we had discovered that if we stayed still for long enough translucent minnows moved in to dart around our feet and nip testingly at our toes. Magdalene observed them keenly with her blue-grey eyes. I, in turn, observed her, not because I harboured any feelings beyond friendship, but out of sheer curiosity. I was fascinated by the way she held herself, her unguarded expressions. She was the only girl I knew.
“I'm tired of this,” she said, startling me with one of the sudden shifts in mood which were becoming characteristic of her. “Let's go into the woods.”
I glanced over to where Oscar was lying. From our position all I could see of him were the tips of his shoes poking out above the grass: “Are you sure that's a good idea?”
We had never crossed the bridge before and I was uncertain whether it would be permitted. Looking back at my friend I saw her face had undergone a swift transformation: her teeth were gritted, her brow furrowed. Down by her side her hands were tightly clenched.