Elephant Man - Christine Sparks [85]
“How blind of me,” he murmured.
“I beg your pardon?” Merrick looked up.
“Nothing, John.”
Merrick must never know what he had seen, Treves decided at once. If it really did mean a deterioration of his condition, and possibly the approach of the end of his life, there was no need to worry him with it. But what was left of that life must be made as happy as possible. And suddenly the dread that he would start to hope for too much became irrelevant.
“Is there anything else, John? Anything at all that I could get for you?”
Merrick looked up quickly, his eyes alight. “Oh no, there is nothing. I have everything. You have given me everything I could possibly want. I am happy every hour of the day. I only wish there was something I could give to you.”
“Please, John, it would give me so much pleasure to give you something. Something just for yourself. Isn’t there something you would like to have?”
Merrick was silent for a moment. Then he rose and went over to his cloak, reached into its pocket, and pulled out a folded piece of paper that seemed to have been torn from a newspaper. He handed it to Treves, who examined it closely.
It was an advertisement for an elegant gentleman’s dressing bag. It boasted ivory brushes, silver fittings, and Moroccan silk linings. In its finely wrought luxury it was the epitome of everything for which Merrick could have no possible use.
“You want a dressing bag, John?”
“You don’t think it’s too gaudy, do you?” Merrick asked anxiously. “It’s really very dashing. It says here it’s something no gentleman should be without. I’m inclined to agree.”
Treves got up and went to the door. “So am I,” he said with decision. “I should have thought of it before. Leave it to me, John. If I can possibly get one, I will.”
In the corridor he began to examine the advertisement again, and became so engrossed in it that he almost walked into Mothershead. She was carrying a parcel.
“Mr. Treves, some more books arrived for Mr. Merrick.”
“I wish they’d stop sending books and start sending money.”
“No better news?”
“No. And there’s barely a week to go till the next Committee meeting,” he sighed. “Have the books put in my office, please. John’s got enough to keep him occupied for the moment.”
“Yes, sir.” Her eyes fell on the paper which he was holding low enough for her to see. “What’s that?”
“A dressing bag,” he said, showing her.
“Very smart indeed.” She looked bewildered.
“Yes. John wants it.”
“A dressing bag?”
“You don’t think it’s too gaudy, do you?”
“Well—”
“John thinks it’s very dashing. Something no gentleman should be without. I’m inclined to agree.”
As he walked off he had the satisfaction of knowing that for once he had totally deprived Mrs. Mothershead of speech.
Anne, into whose hands he gave the job of acquiring the bag, was similarly speechless, though not for long.
“But what on earth is he going to do with it, Freddie? It’s completely useless to him.”
“He doesn’t see it that way. I’ve come to realize that he has another life, one that goes on entirely in his head, and which makes his real life tolerable.
“In his dreams he’s—oh, everything nature meant him to be when she formed his character.” Treves sighed heavily as he added, “and that includes a ladies’ man.”
“Oh Freddie, no.”
“I’m afraid so. He’s a young man in his early twenties and if he has one tragedy that’s greater than all the others put together it’s that his reaction to women is entirely normal. Mrs. Kendal’s first visit made him very much aware of himself as a man, and now he falls—very humbly—in love with every lady that comes to see him. Imagine those feelings inside a body that makes a woman want to run from him.
“He mentioned once that he’d like to go to a blind asylum. Since then I’ve sometimes wondered if it was in his mind that a woman who couldn’t see him might come to love him.”
She was silent for a while, and when he looked he could see tears falling gently down her face. He slipped his arm round her and held her close to him.
“And this dressing case—?” she said at last.
“It’s