The Devil's Making (50 page)

‘At any rate, I developed the habit of going across to Victoria. A Herculean trip from here, but it would spend my energy. I've always been possessed with a restless energy for women. I don't know if you understand that, Hobbes. You seem somewhat of a Laodicean to me – lukewarm, like Aemilia. I like to be with women who have a bit of spice to them – and are vicious, even. I become very excited with prostitutes. Of course many men who have spent time at sea become used to them. But I have always had a difficulty with them, Hobbes. And this is the sort of thing I should find humiliating to make a public statement about. In a word, my virile member lets me down. Or, from their point of view, lets them down. I cannot penetrate a woman.

‘I've given much thought to why. At first I assumed it was an organic lack of some kind. But some of the women themselves averted me that it was not. They would ask me if I was upset, or frightened of them. They would make jokes like: “It's not going to bite you”. I would become very angry. Not that I would show it. The bitches.

‘I'd never been in love. But when I met the Somerville girls, at St Mark's church, I believe I fell in love with all of them! At least I thought they were wonderful. They all have an ethereal quality, don't you think?'

‘I know what you mean.'

‘You see when you're deeply excited by a fricatrice – a woman of spice, so to say – but the final pleasure, the consummation, is denied to you, you become very angry with women. Not that I ever hurt one. But I sometimes thought I might. A very distressing feeling. Not that they are ladies, the fricatrices. On the other hand I have never been drawn to them if they were not lady
like.
I never wanted to, as they say in Victoria, “hump squaws”. Forgive my language, Hobbes, I can see it disturbs you. But we're both men, after all.

‘At any rate, I fancied myself in love with each Somerville girl in turn. And it was very diverting. Last summer I was as near to being happy as ever in my life. The mother is common, of course, and some of her little mannerisms have rubbed off on the daughters. But the father must certainly have been a gentleman. They all have a streak of refinement. God, I loved those Sunday afternoons!'

For the first time, I saw signs of emotion in Beaumont: his face was briefly animated by an expression of grief and longing, then it became wooden again.

‘Then that beast McCrory appeared on the scene. Every Sunday. Showing off to the girls. Always trying to make them giggle.
Not
a gentleman, I assure you. But he seemed to take an intense interest in me. He told me, very seriously, man to man, as we walked down the road one evening, that he wanted to be my friend. Well, dash it, Hobbes. It's not the sort of thing one chap says to another. Sort of thing girls say. But I have such restless energy that when he proposed we meet in town the following Saturday night, I accepted.

‘When we did meet we went to a few taverns for drinks – although I don't drink more than a glass of ale, and he drank very little. And he became very intimate in his way of speaking to me, asking me about my home, my mother, my childhood, my aspirations. I must admit it was new to me to have a man ask me such things. It's the sort of thing a woman might do to pass the time in bed when the other thing had not worked. But I felt flattered, I suppose. We ended up going to the Windsor Rooms – which of course I knew already – but where he was doing what he insisted on calling “field work”. This consisted, I believe, in his asking the girls all sorts of indecent questions. He didn't do this at the same table as me, of course. But we enjoyed ourselves, dancing with the girls, and so forth. Then he asked me if I was going to have a girl for the night. I opened up to him and said I didn't want to, because it would lead to the same old failure. At this, he whisked me out of the Windsor Rooms, and back to his house for what he called “a good talk”. He had a way of worming information out of a man. As I say, I realize I have needed confession in my life. I have always been too shy to confess my thoughts to friends. Besides, among Englishmen, it just isn't done, is it? My father was very remote, and usually away at sea, so we hardly ever talked. With my mother the talk was mainly about scripture. So I'm afraid the dam burst, so to say, with McCrory, and all of my thoughts came out in a flood. The man was a swine, at bottom, but awfully good at listening.

‘So when I would come into Victoria every week or so, I would go out with McCrory on his “field work”, and stay the night in his spare bedroom. Then the next morning he would do private treatments with me. Animal magnetism, universal fluid, and so forth. This had what he called “paradoxical results” in me. I would become filled with the most unpleasant sensations – creepy crawly feelings, tingling, and pains in my muscles. At the same time I would get into a funk and break out into a stinking sweat. This interested McCrory very much. He said it smelt of sulphur and brimstone. I say! Can you imagine: sulphur and brimstone. As if I were Old Nick himself! I suppose that's why he called me a “devil”.'

Beaumont paused as if in awe at this, his mouth hanging slightly open. Then it resumed its usual rictus, and he began talking again in his thin, flat tone.

‘He saw I didn't like his saying this, so he explained that I was suffering from “stagnant humours”. The universal fluid had become too still, as if in a swamp, so to say, and although it would be the devil's own job to get it flowing again, he and I should “work on it together”, and eventually I should get better.

‘But I was not exactly his patient. He said, in his rather over-candid way, that he preferred to have me as a friend. He did, however, accept some financial contributions from me, to buy medical supplies and equipment. A new phrenological head, for instance, which he sent for from San Francisco.

‘I shall list to you some of the treatments. They were mostly suggestions of things I could do on my own or with a fricatrice. They are too embarrassing to explore in detail. One was onanism into a lambskin sheath. The idea was that this imitated the woman's sheath, and that I should become habituated to the sensations of confinement of the member, and so forth.

‘Another was that I extend the breathing down into my abdomen. He said my diaphragm did not move adequately. But this “breathing down” as he put it, made me dizzy.

‘Another was that I should always lie with a fricatrice from behind. The girls themselves call this “spooning”. The idea was that this would make me less shy than I might be face to face, and more “comfortable at being an animal”. I objected to being thought an animal, of course, but he soothed me by pointing out that “animal” meant “animated” by spirit. I should let my spirit move my body. Here the breathing usually came in too, since he pointed out that “spirit” meant “breath”. He would come out with such etymologies as if they were magic, forgetting, I suppose, that every Englishman of breeding has had years of Latin and Greek at school.

‘I am avoiding the question of spooning in this digression. It was actually a promising suggestion, though I'm not sure if this was for the reasons he suggested. I achieved a sort of onanism, once or twice, with a girl. An improvement – in retrospect. I could not see it at the time. I was becoming ruled by my difficulty, and obsessed with it. All the attention McCrory brought to it, so much a relief at first, made it more important – fanned the flames.

‘Then McCrory made a new suggestion. Playfully. He had adopted a manner with me which I would normally permit no one, a sort of bantering. He suggested that perhaps what I really wanted was to sleep with a boy. To behave like a Greek. On other words, that I was a pathic. In favour of this idea he instanced the comparative success of the “spooning”. Ridiculous! I said at first. After all, there are some rather notable differences between a woman, even a girl, and a boy. The girls from the Windsor Rooms, at any rate, are rather voluptuous. Anything less like a boy I cannot imagine, even when embracing them from behind. Besides, as I assured McCrory, and I'm afraid most Englishmen of breeding might, I had occasionally shared a bed with another boy at school and indulged in the sort of practices which are not at all uncommon. Even then, at school, I had never
desired
a boy, in the sense – all too painfully – I now desire a woman.

‘He jumped on this! He was most interested. Said it was fascinating that I had no
fear
of boys, as I had of women. I said, why would I ever fear boys? I had been one myself, after all. But I thought I feared women – by then he had convinced me I feared women – precisely because I desired them so much yet at the same time felt, as I supposed, somewhat awkward about defiling them. I am merely guessing: for me these things are unbearably complicated. But McCrory then said that there are things about ourselves that we do not wish to know, and that we put them into recesses of our mind and forget them, but they are still there as part of us. It is just like putting an object we don't like in a disused room of a house or in the cellar, and pretending to forget it. We know it's still in our house, but we pretend it is not.

‘I said I found that a rather fanciful idea, and at any rate logically impossible to prove.

‘He said, “It's a great idea and it came from an Englishman, Francis Galton. It means that in each person there are things put aside and buried, whose existence is denied. You, George, have put away your desire for boys but it's there all the same.”'

‘“Rubbish!”, I said, and reiterated that I most decidedly preferred women to boys, even though they made me nervous. But he wasn't listening. Then in his usual way of jumping from one simple idea to another, he said suddenly: “A berdache! What you need is a berdache!” And he explained to me something unutterably vile: he said that in certain Indian tribes, boys who were pathics were allowed to dress and behave as women, even to the extent of becoming the concubine of a man!

‘Now, at that time, which was not more than five or six weeks ago, McCrory had Indians on the brain. The Tsimshian had arrived and set up camp at Cormorant Point. McCrory was full of the idea of going to see them and buy medicines from them and learn “ancient methods of healing” as he put it. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, he had given me several very expensive medicines – which of course I paid for – for my “condition” as it was coming to be known. Powdered rhinocerous horn, reindeer horns, bull's testicles, concentrated oysters – all obtained through his Celestial servant, Lee. None of it did the least good. He said he felt sure the Indians would know the kind of herbs and medicines which would be found in the woods here, and given
fresh
– which would make all the difference.

‘At the same time he was egged on to visit the Indians by Aemilia, who seemed very curious about them. So he went and saw them. He reported that they were going to find him the appropriate herbs. He said they were very open about such matters, not hypocritical the way we whites are. He was very taken with them. He had not asked about the “berdache” yet, because the camp was mainly full of women and what looked like warriors. But he would.

‘There was another matter.' Beaumont paused. ‘A different matter. Once McCrory had got to know me fairly well, he began to ask questions about our camp here, our dispositions, our arms, and so on. Of course I told him. There are no secrets in such matters. Then he would ask about our plans if an arbitrator ruled against the British claim. Would we stay on San Juan? Would we fight? Now, I ask you! Ridiculous! These Yankees of course have no principles, so they assume
we
don't. I assured him that if an arbitrator ruled against us, which was highly likely in view of the envy other powers have of Great Britain, then of course we would pack our bags and leave.

‘He could not believe this. “Albion perfide!” and all that – not that he was educated enough to know the phrase, but he had the idea. We almost quarrelled about it. Then after that, from time to time, he would say, “What would you think if it turned out I'm an American agent, sent to this Colony to spy on the English?”'

‘I said so far as I could see there were already at least 3,000 American spies in Victoria, and the English had long since given up trying to hide anything from them. Besides which, there was nothing to hide. Even on the island here, Delacombe and Epstein know each other's every intention. It's a way of avoiding accidents. But McCrory would still tease me about it, and it began to rankle somewhat.

‘My account is almost at an end, Hobbes. On that dreadful day, McCrory arranged to meet me near Cormorant Point, after he would have visited the Indian Camp, at one o'clock. There is a small bay just West of Telegraph Cove where I sometimes tie up if I come over alone, and from there a path leads to the main road and then to Margaret Bay or Cormorant Point. We arranged to meet just below where the path met the road. The idea was that McCrory would be able to give me a batch of fresh herbs for my “condition”, which I would take for the next few days. Then on the Saturday evening I should try their effects on Grace at the Windsor Rooms, with whom McCrory had already, as he put it “discussed the case.” All very humiliating. Then he would ask the Tsimshian about this famous “berdache” idea of his, which I must say did not appeal to me.

‘I arrived at the place quite early. Not wanting to be seen talking to McCrory up on the main road, I waited a hundred yards or so down the path, near the stream, knowing he would look for me there. I remember I paced up and down, whistling through my teeth, and whittling on a stick. It's a habit I have, being so restless, I know people laugh at it, but I can't help it. I've wondered since what I was thinking about. The real answer is: nothing. I just waited. He was late. I waited. Then he arrived, coming rather cheerfully down the path, carrying a basket like a woman going to market.

‘”Well, how's my spy today?” he said. Then seeing that didn't go down well he said “I mean, I've been doing some spying on the Indians, just as you spy for me on San Juan.” I said “I say, old chap”, or some such meaningless thing. Then he sat down on a rock, and tapped on his basket. “Just the stuff for you in here,” he said. “Mind you I'm afraid I have to disappoint you about the
berdache.
Poor old George. These particular Indians don't have 'em.”