The Palace of Curiosities. Rosie Garland
murmured Donkey-Skin. Careful, girl, or he’ll skin and stuff you before you know it.
Mama was already bustling about him, offering him the sturdier of our little chairs, bleating excuses for the lack of tea, lack of sugar, lack of milk. He took out a sovereign from his pocket with the carelessness of finding a coat-button there and shone its little sun upon the dullness of our room.
‘Ah, the labours of a caring mother. They are never done, are they, madam? Pray do send a boy to bring us tea, and milk, and sugar – plenty of sugar.’ He smiled. ‘And a penny for the lad himself.’
‘Oh no, sir, I could not,’ Mama lied.
‘You are right. How unfeeling of me to expect you to work whilst I rest! No, it is not fitting that you should prepare tea for an unexpected caller. I observed a restaurant on the corner as I came this way. Pray, send the boy there instead, so he may fetch a can of good sweet tea ready-made, a plate of bread and butter and some slices of beef. I declare I am a little hungry and would not eat alone.’
Mama paused for precisely as long as was necessary to indicate her treasured respectability; then raced down the passage and bawled to the woman upstairs for her eldest to run an errand, now. I stared at my lap and counted the seconds before she returned and resumed fussing once more about our guest’s comfort. I was the one hairy as a dog, but I believe she would have rolled on her back and stuck her paws in the air if she had thought it might please him.
I watched him through my eyebrows, simpering at my mother, making little jokes at which she tittered. When the food arrived, Mama left the room to argue about the change and he occupied himself gazing at the tobacco walls, the empty grate, the unlit gas-bracket, the cracked picture of a cow up to its hooves in a puddle, once again avoiding the sight of me. I folded my hands, stroking the fur on my knuckles and wondering why my breathing seemed so excessively noisy this afternoon.
The boy followed Mama into the room, his right cheek glowing with the pinch of her fingers. Mama scurried like a girl-of-all-work, finding a plate here, a cloth for the table there, chasing the lad upstairs for a third chair, because our visitor refused to stay seated whilst one or other of us remained standing. At last the tea was poured, the beef slapped on to a little plate beside the bread, and all of it sitting between us, curling at the edges.
‘Take some,’ Mama urged me, ‘and do not be so ungrateful.’
I took the largest slice of meat, rolled it into a cigar and placed it in my mouth where it collapsed deliciously on my tongue. The more I chewed, the more delectable it became: I could not remember when I had tasted anything so good. We dined in silence, Mama and I endeavouring to eat as slowly as possible. The plate emptied. Mr Arroner cleared his throat once more.
‘Dear ladies, I hope you will forgive such a rude invasion into the peaceful business of your lives.’
He sipped at his tea with feminine delicacy.
Donkey-Skin snorted: Why does he not growl, and toss it down his throat? Why does he not drink it like a man?
I ignored her. He turned to Mama.
‘With your permission, I would present myself as a friend to you, madam. And may I blushingly say it, to your delightful and most remarkable daughter.’
Delightful? said Donkey-Skin, pretending to search the room. Remarkable? Of whom does he speak? You? Ha!
He put down his cup and pressed his hand to his breast. ‘Ah. Dear madam, I can dissemble no longer. I am a simple man and your wits have found me out: I confess it is indeed your daughter with whom I wish to be more closely acquainted.’
Mama’s tea-cup paused partway to her lips. ‘My daughter?’
‘I have heard of her. By reputation.’ He coughed gently. ‘I have also heard of certain cruelties visited upon her person. I declare this has moved me deeply. Ah! To hear of the callous spite of those who neither understand nor appreciate that which is truly gifted, truly different, truly extraordinary! I resolved that I would visit and offer myself as a kind soul possessed of fellow feeling. One who might dare to offer his hand humbly in friendship.’
Mama blinked at this vision. He scraped his chair to face me directly. I raised a lavish eyebrow. Moisture gleamed each side of his nose and upon the thick curtain of his lips.
‘My dearest miss, I entreat you, do not dismiss me as incapacitated with impetuous foolishness. It will be clear to you that I am no longer a young man. However I do declare that it is most distracting to find myself in such an intimate setting with you.’ He took a deep breath and bowed his head. ‘I hope you might forgive such a passionate outburst.’
I picked up the last slice of bread and beef and began to devour it.
‘Ah. I have said too much.’
I looked at him, in agreement for that moment. Mama kicked me under the table, and it wobbled.
Donkey-Skin laughed, and then grew quiet. He’s lying, she whispered.
I know, I thought in return, but discovered that I was blushing. I swallowed my mouthful.
‘Dearest miss, I can see by your bashfulness that it is true. I have spoken too hastily, and have offended your modest nature.’
I wondered if he thought he could read me through my fur.
Perhaps he is not lying, suggested Donkey-Skin.
Mama’s hands trembled; she could not lift the tea-cup to her lips.
‘What a fool I am!’ he continued. ‘Why should you trust me, when you do not know who I am? When I have not shown you my recommendations?’
He reached inside his coat and brought out a folded paper with fine scrollwork at its head, declaring itself sent from the Royal Society of Philanthropic Science. Mama crabbed her eyes at the scramble of fancy letters, taking in the sealing wax and the quality of the ink.
‘Read the whole, madam. The whole, I beg of you. I have noth-ing to conceal. I am a scientist, it is true; but alas, not wealthy. My studies are of the unrecognised kind. There is a fearful prejudice against men such as myself: men possessed of intelligence and skill, but lacking the requisite high birth. It is the greatest scourge and scandal of this society we live in.’
Mama nodded as though she understood what he was talking about.
‘However, there are gentlemen who recognise the talents of a man who does not have Lord So-and-So as his father, nor Lady Blank as his mother. Upon them do I rely, and to them I turn for encouragement and honest employment.’
Mama chewed her lower lip. ‘It is a fine document,’ she pronounced, when enough time had passed that our guest might think she had read it.
I scanned it carefully; it was a fine piece of work, full of phrases praising his tact, extolling his intelligence, his application, his scholarly virtues.
‘You appear before us a paragon,’ I said, when I had read enough to get a taste of the whole.
Donkey-Skin read it over my shoulder. Too princely, she tsked. He is lying after all.
He rocked back, and I hoped the chair would not faint beneath his well-fed shoulders.
‘So do men find me. I would not be so bold as to heap such compliments upon myself.’
He bent forward, bringing his face very close to mine. The chair groaned.
‘My dear miss, I desire most earnestly that you might trust me.’
He smelled of tea and beef and something else, some underlying spice I knew but could not name.
‘In some small way I know what it is to face the hurts of the world. A world which turns aside that which it does not comprehend. I offer you the hand of comradeship, and a fine understanding of the world’s wounds.’
He made one of his deep inhalations and my breath