The lesson of this impromptu parable was not lost on her. She nodded slowly, set down her cup, and rose from the chair. Though she made no move toward either of us, the monstrumologist and I drew back. There is beauty that soothes like the warm kiss of the spring sun upon the cheek, and then there is beauty that terrifies, like the cry of Ozymandias, inviting despair.
“I am a fool,” she said. “You will never change.”
“If that was your hope, then, yes, you are quite foolish.”
“I am not the only one. I pity you, Pellinore Warthrop. Do you know that? I pity you. The most intelligent man I have ever met, and also the most vain and vindictive. You have always been a little in love with death. That’s the surprising thing. I should think you’d leap at the chance to see it again face-to-face. It’s the only reason you chose your repulsive ‘profession.’”
She whirled away and hurried from the room, a hand pressed against her mouth as if to stop up what else might come out.
I glanced at the doctor, but he had turned away; his face was half in shadow, half in light. I hurried after Muriel Chanler and helped her with her wrap. A gust of wind blew through the door when I opened it, and rain spattered and popped upon the vestibule floor. At the curb, through the gray curtain of the storm, I could see the shining black hansom, the driver hunched in his seat, the withers of the great dray horse glittering with the watery sheen.
“It was a pleasure to meet you, Will,” she said before she stepped out. A hand rested briefly upon my shoulder. “I will pray for you.”
In the parlor the doctor had not moved, nor did he upon my return. I stood for several awful moments in silence, not knowing what to say.
“Yes?” he said softly.
“Mrs. Chanler has left, sir.”
He made no reply. He remained still. I picked up the tray, went back to the kitchen, washed up the china, and placed it in the rack to dry. When I returned, the doctor still had not moved an inch. I’d seen it dozens of times before: Warthrop’s reticence solidified in direct proportion to the intensity of his feelings. The more powerful the emotion, the less he revealed. His face was as tranquil—and blank—as a death mask.
“Yes? What is it now, Will Henry?”
“Would you like something for dinner, sir?”
He made no reply. He remained where he was, and I remained where I was.
“What are you doing now?” he asked.
“Nothing, sir.”
“Forgive me, but isn’t that something you could do practically anywhere?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll . . . I will do that, sir.”
“What? What will you do?”
“Nothing . . . I will do nothing somewhere else.”
THREE
“It Is a Patient Hunter”
The shout came a little after four the following morning, and, of course, I answered. I found him in his room, shivering uncontrollably beneath the covers, as if gripped by a fever. His face was corpse white. Sweat shone upon his forehead and glistened on his upper lip.
“Will Henry,” he croaked. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
“You called me, sir.”
“Did I? I don’t remember. What time is it?”
“After four, sir.”
“Four—in the morning?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It feels much earlier than that. Are you sure?”
I said I was, and sank into the chair at his bedside. We sat in silence for a moment, he, shivering; I, yawning.
“I fear I may have caught a cold,” he said.
“Shall I fetch the doctor, sir?”
“Or the duck. How old was that duck, Will Henry? Perhaps it was bad.”
“I don’t think so, sir. I had some too, and I’m not sick.”
“But you are a child. Children have stronger stomachs. That is a known fact, Will Henry.”
“I thought the duck was very good, sir.”
“Yes, I could tell. The way you stuffed yourself, one might think you hadn’t eaten for a week. I’ve told you many times, Will Henry, either a man controls his appetites or his appetites control him. You do know Dante devoted more than one circle of hell to the unregulated desires. For your transgressions of the flesh, you would be consigned to the third circle, where you would lie in total darkness while shit rained down upon you from the sky.”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“‘Yes, sir.’ . . . Do you find it a pleasant prospect, Will Henry? Shit raining down upon you for all eternity?”
“No, sir.”
“But that is not what you said. You said, ‘yes, sir,’ as if you might find it agreeable.”
“I was agreeing with you, Dr. Warthrop, not the idea of shit.”
“‘The idea of shit.’ . . . Will Henry, I am beginning to believe you are far too obsequious for your own good—and certainly for my own good. Flattery lands you in the eighth circle, where you wallow in a river of the selfsame excrement.”
“Then there doesn’t seem to be much hope for me, sir.”
He grunted. “Not much, no.”
I fought back a yawn.
“Am I keeping you awake, Will Henry?”
“Yes, sir. No, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
“For what?”
“For . . . I don’t remember.”
“You are sorry for something you’ve forgotten?”
“No, sir. I’ve forgotten what I’m sorry for.”
“You’re giving me a headache, Will Henry. A conversation with you is like negotiating Minos’s labyrinth.”
“Yes, sir.”
“‘Yes, sir! Yes, sir!’” he mocked me, his voice rising an octave. “If I said pixies danced jigs upon the hearth, you would answer, ‘Yes, sir; yes, sir!’ If the house were on fire and I told you to throw gasoline upon it to quench the flames, you would cry, ‘Yes, sir! Yes, sir!’ and blow us both to kingdom come! You have a mind, do you not, William James Henry? You were born with that indispensable appendage, were you not?”
The words were upon my lips—“Yes, sir!”—and in the nick of time I bit them back. He took no notice, however. The monstrumologist was on a tear.
“Have all my efforts been for naught?” he cried to the ceiling, striking a fist against his pillow. “The sacrifices of time and privacy, the patient instruction and guidance, the special consideration I showed in honor of your father’s service to me—all for nothing? Really, what dividends have my efforts earned, Will Henry? For almost two years you’ve been with me, and when put to the test, your reply is the obsequious echo I might expect from the lowliest liveryman. So I shall ask it again: Do you have a brain?”