Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [59]
He would accept the morning paper from her with grave courtesy, inquire about her health, and mention something that had particularly interested him in the previous day’s news. Treves wondered if Merrick guessed that Mothershead never had time to read the paper, and consequently felt herself at a disadvantage in these conversations. After a few mornings he became certain that he did. It dawned on Treves with a shock that there was more than intelligence in that great head, there was also a lurking humor. It made him wonder for the thousandth time what sort of man nature had intended Merrick to be.
The editor of the Times had promised to keep public interest in the story boiling. Treves suspected that Carr-Gomm had some sort of influence on the paper’s board, for a couple of days later he was contacted by a reporter for further details of Merrick’s condition. He gave them frankly, and for the next few days made sure that some other paper than the Times was delivered to the Isolation Ward. Whatever Merrick eventually learned about his own condition Treves wanted it to be directly from himself.
He was less observant, however, about leaving the Times lying around in his own home, a piece of neglectfulness that brought Anne’s wrath down about his head one evening.
“I am trying to teach the child to be a lady, Freddie, and it isn’t made easier by you allowing her to read anything she likes.”
“I didn’t allow Jenny to read anything,” he defended himself. “According to you she just picked it up.”
“It isn’t the sort of thing she ought to be picking up. It should never have been brought into the house with that kind of thing in it.”
Anne pushed the offending issue of the paper toward him. It was open at page 3, where a good deal of space had been devoted to Treves’ comments on Merrick’s condition. They were not, he guiltily conceded, ideal reading for a child of ten, but it had never occurred to him that Jenny would be sufficiently alert to pick up the paper or read the piece with any understanding. Remembering his daughter’s precocious intelligence he realized that it ought to have occurred to him. For the sake of domestic harmony he decided to conceal how much pleasure he took in this.
“You little ghoul,” he told her amiably when he went upstairs to say goodnight. “Why can’t you—” He groped around for the phrase Anne had used. “—learn to be a lady?”
She made a face.
“I agree,” he said before he could stop himself.
“I just saw your name in the paper and kept on reading.”
“Did you understand it?”
“Not some of the longer words. What are ‘fibrous tumours’?”
“Never mind,” he said hastily. “I’m beginning to agree with your mother.”
“Is Mr. Merrick very ugly, Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because—he grew differently from everyone else. And just kept on growing. Now he’s so different that he’s—well, he’s not like other people.”
“Like Alice?”
“Who?”
“Alice in Wonderland. In that book Grandpapa gave me when I was eight. Alice kept on growing bigger and bigger or smaller and smaller. And she wasn’t like any of the other people in the book. She kept trying to be, but she was always the wrong size.”
“Jenny,” Treves said urgently. “Where is that book? Do you still have it?”
“I gave it to Kate but she didn’t like it. She said it frightened her.”
“Where is it?”
The child’s brow puckered. “In the playroom, I think.”
He was in there in a moment, ferreting around among the shelves till he found what he was looking for. It was a large edition, beautifully illustrated in color, and almost untouched, since neither of his daughters had spent much time with it. Treves took it downstairs and stuffed it in his bag which he kept by the door. As he turned to go into the drawing room he found Anne regarding him cynically from the doorway.
“I suppose