Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [81]
He delivered his lecture with the upper part of his mind only, while the rest dwelt on the injustice of Mothershead’s accusations. He remembered Merrick’s room as he had seen it last, crowded with mementoes of his society visitors. The mantelpiece was now overflowing with photographs of the ladies who had followed Mrs. Kendal’s example. The atmosphere of the room had been gay, clean, and cheerful, a cosy little home over which its imprisoned monarch could reign happily. How different from the circumstances in which he had found the Elephant Man.
The faces of Merrick’s visitors floated before Treves’ eyes as he talked on and on in the lecture hall. They were not the faces he himself would have chosen for companionship. Beautiful as many of them were, their aristocratic, well-fed complacency would have bored and infuriated him. They were so familiar they might have come out of one mould; all with a high-nosed air about them, the inevitable result of the tension they felt.
With a sense of dismay Treves confronted the thought he had been edging closer to without knowing it. Their tension was caused by their reaction to John and the effort to control it. “You saw their disgust,” Mothershead had accused him, and it was true. He had been aware of it many times, but discounted it for the sake of the benefit that John could take from these visits. And he believed with total conviction, that John was unaware of the way his visitors regarded him. Many folk in the past had been horrified by his appearance, and he had grown used to seeing them scream and run away. People whose breeding (or whose curiosity?) demanded that they control their feelings and present an appearance of smiling complacency were outside his experience, and he accepted their politeness at its face value.
It seemed to Treves that several weeks cocooned in his mirrorless rooms were making Merrick forget that he was different from other men, and this was the effect that gave him the most satisfaction.
Was it not better to allow him to continue in this happy ignorance, even at the cost of a small deception? Treves knew what Mothershead would say, but Mothershead did not know John as he did himself. Just the same, by the end of the evening he was admitting to himself that her challenge had disturbed him.
He was far from proceeding to an actual admission that she might have been right, but before he went home for the night he slipped back to the hospital and made his way to John’s rooms. Like a mother hen guarding her chicks, he wanted to look in and see for himself that John was settled and happy. He might stop for a chat, hear about that afternoon’s visitors and admire their gifts. Then the nagging little voice within him would be stilled.
Before he reached Merrick’s door he could hear the sound of a low, plaintive murmur coming from inside. Probably another nightmare he thought, although it was quite different from any sound Merrick had ever made before. Quietly he opened the door.
Merrick was not in bed, but seated at the window with his back to the door. In his hands was a large, white pillow, which he grasped tightly to his chest. Part of it was brushing against his cheek, and as he rubbed his face against its softness he whispered urgent words. Treves could make none of them out, but the tone reached him clearly enough. It held a melancholy, a yearning for delights once known and lost forever. It was the voice of a lover.
Beside him was the table on which the portraits of Mrs. Kendal and Merrick’s mother occupied the place of honor. But the mother’s picture had been turned face down. Only Mrs. Kendal remained, her dark, sweet eyes gazing on Merrick in the darkness.
For a long time Treves stood there, frozen with shock, his mind refusing to take in the implications of what he was seeing. When he could force himself to move, it was to close the door and turn quietly away.
He left the hospital as unnoticed as he had entered it. He tried to believe that the storm inside him was not his conscience, only the tiring