Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [56]
One of the members mumbled, “I quite agree.” Carr-Gomm scowled.
“I see,” he said quietly. “All, then, that move we keep Mr. Merrick here?”
Again he raised his own hand, but this time he was alone. He gave an intimidatory look at the one man who had supported him before. The man looked away, ashamed, but kept his hand stubbornly beneath the table. Carr-Gomm exchanged an angry, hopeless glance with Treves.
“All those opposed?” he said formally.
In a moment it seemed that a forest of hands had grown round the table. Treves turned away to hide his contempt. Carr-Gomm remained imperturbable, although his voice had gained a chilly edge.
“I see,” was all he said.
Broadneck was triumphant. “Well then,” he squealed. “In the meantime, of course, he needn’t be turned out. He may stay in the rooms off Bedstead Square until such time as more suitable arrangements can be made, thus freeing the Isolation Ward for more deserving patients.” He looked round the table as a rumble of assent enveloped him. “Well then, Mr. Chairman, if there is nothing further to discuss, I move that we adjourn this meeting and all go about our normal business.”
In a voice filled with disgust Carr-Gomm recited, “I second the motion gentlemen. This meeting is adjourned.”
Coughs and shuffles filled the room, chairs were scraped hastily back, papers were rustled noisily to put up a good front for departure. Of the men who filed hastily out only one could look Carr-Gomm in the eye. And that one was Broadneck. As the door closed behind him Treves slowly released his hands, which had balled into fists at the look on Broadneck’s face. He felt filled with despair. He had meant to do so much and he had done nothing. Carr-Gomm had achieved a very little, a short breathing space for Merrick, but he himself had stood there useless. His eloquence had gone for nothing. They hadn’t even listened, these sleek, well-fed men.
Sullenly he picked up one of the photographs. It was lying face downward, having been slammed down in that position by Broadneck. Turn it over, Treves thought with bitterness, hide it away, pretend it isn’t there. He looked at the hideous face whose eyes now seemed, to his guilty imagination, to be offering him their trust. Then he put it in his pocket. He too could not bear to look at it just now.
“Somehow I don’t think they quite understand.” Carr-Gomm sounded sad and resigned, which was rare for him. Years in the law had taught him not to be too perturbed by the outcome of any decision, as there was usually as much to be said for one side as the other. Now, confronted with a situation in which he could see right on only one side, he began to regard this attitude as dreadful cynicism.
Driving home alone that night in a cab, Treves found himself thinking unexpectedly of his elder brother William. Ten years his senior, William had supplied much of the affection he had never received from his father. A good man, William Treves the elder, but dour and withdrawn, especially after his wife’s death—much involved in his upholstery business and undemonstrative to his children. To William Treves the younger had fallen the task of being a father to the other children, and with none of them was this more true than with the baby of the family, Frederick.
Steady, solid William had kept the younger boy in check when his violent enthusiasms threatened to carry him away entirely.
“You’ve got to think, old chap,” he’d said a thousand times in his slow way. “You always dash along without thinking.”
He’d said it when the fourteen-year-old Frederick had wanted to leave their home in Dorchester and go and live on