A Curious Beginning

“Do not feel sorry for me,” he ordered. The air around him fairly crackled with anger, and I regarded him coolly.

“I shouldn’t dream of feeling sorry for you. You have two fine arms and two working legs and a strong back. You have a brain that seems more capacious than most, and as near as I can make out, your sight is otherwise unimpaired. What possible reason do you have to believe I would pity you?”

“You would not be the first,” he said, his expression sullen.

I gave him a grim smile. “I am afraid you will have to try a great deal harder than that if you desire my sympathy. I have traveled widely in the world, and I have seen men with half as many functional limbs as you and twice the courtesy. If I pity you, it is only because you are so determined to be disagreeable.”

His only response was a sort of growl, but I was finished with the discussion. I rose and dusted off my hands, grinding out the last of my cigarillo carefully on the sole of my boot.

“If we are to continue with the elephant, I must have an apron. I have only one other dress in my bag and it is silk.” With that I moved to a pile of discarded cloths, finding at last a piece long enough and clean enough to serve my purposes. I tied it neatly about my waist and set to work again, testing the glue that rested in its pot near the stove.

“Is this warm enough?” I inquired, lifting the spatula and watching the amber threads pull like so much spun sugar.

“It wants a bit more heat,” he said, and I noticed that his voice was marginally more cordial than it had been. He showed me how to move the glue closer to the heat to soften it and the proper method of applying it with the various spatulas while he stitched with enormous needles, setting small, precise stitches that would have put any needlewoman to shame.

We passed a long time busily engaged in our endeavors, working steadily until there was a noise at the door and a boy bounded in. He was a grubby child, no older than ten, but his eyes shone with intelligence and—when they lighted on me—curiosity.

“The post, Mr. S.,” he said, proffering a single slender envelope. Mr. Stoker flicked a glance towards it and told him to throw it on the fire.

“Surely you will want to read it,” I protested. He shrugged one heavy shoulder.

“Why should I? I know the contents well enough to say them off by heart. ‘It is with deepest regret that we must write to inform you that your application to travel with the Royal Museum of Natural History on its forthcoming expedition to Peru has been denied.’ Shall I go on? I know it word for word by now. If you like, I could probably set it to music, perhaps something moody and sad for a duet of oboe and bassoon.”

He affected insouciance, but there was a bitter note underlying his tone.

“It mightn’t be this time,” I said reasonably.

“Oh, Christ preserve us, all of you butterfly chasers are the same—appalling optimists, always looking for the best, determined to find it.”

I daubed glue at one of the gaping seams. “Precisely. You see, Mr. Stoker, one seldom finds something if one never actually looks for it. I should have thought an explorer would have a better grasp of that concept.”

He snorted rudely and the boy stared from one to the other of us with rounded eyes. Mr. Stoker turned to him. “The coin is in the tin, Badger.” The boy went to a shelf where a battered sweet tin sagged against a stack of teetering books. He emptied it of the single coin inside—so small as to be worth almost nothing—and thanked Mr. Stoker.

Mr. Stoker grunted by way of reply, and the boy tipped his cap to me, offering a winsome smile that shone in his dirty face. I grinned back at him and he bent to scratch Huxley behind the ears.

“Badger.” The harsh voice brought the boy up sharply.

“Yes, Mr. Stoker?”

“The ham you brought yesterday gives me indigestion. Take it away, and tell the bloody butcher he is a criminal for passing that off as good meat.”

The boy dove for the ham, wrapping it in a bit of sacking as carefully as one might a newborn babe. “I will tell him, Mr. S.,” he promised, and scurried away, clutching his prize to his thin chest.

Mr. Stoker carried on with his work in silence, but his silence was a heavy thing and I was glad when he paused to brew cups of foul tea. He drank his from a tin that had once held peaches, but mine was in proper porcelain, albeit badly cracked and missing the handle. I held it carefully, watching as he stirred a horrifying amount of sugar into his with the handle of a paintbrush.

“Sugar if you want.” He indicated with the paintbrush, and I refused politely. He bent to his tea and I studied him, noting the strong hands with broad palms, calloused and marked with scars, the noble brow, the proud nose. At length I shook my head, and Mr. Stoker, who had not been unaware of my scrutiny, I think, gave me a significant look.

“Do not tell me I disappoint you?” he challenged.

“Oh, indeed you do,” I said evenly. “But probably not in the ways you expect.”