The Sea House: A Novel (20 page)

Carfax also came to assess the damage, but did not seem overly worried since the only place the craft would now be sailing was through the dusty museum attics. He apologised that he did not have time to show me to the rooms devoted to mammalian anatomy.

‘Next year, you will see, I will have all our new acquisitions labelled and out on display, but since you cannot wait until then, I have asked my assistant Nicols to help you find whatever it is you want to see.’

I made my way up the stairs and found Nicols in one of the back rooms, engaged in cataloguing beetles. He was a research student, and several years younger than me, but he received me with a somewhat disrespectful, ‘Ah, Ferguson. The mermaid man! Have you caught one yet?’ He laughed to himself, and I realised with dismay that my quest had become widely known in Edinburgh’s academic circles. From his tone, I also realised that I had become something of a joke.

He made me wait on a chair while he finished his work at his leisure. After some considerable while, I stood up to say that I would leave if it were inconvenient for him.

‘What was it you wanted to see?’

‘I was particularly interested in examining specimens of land mammals that have transmuted to adapt themselves to water: seals or dolphins, possibly the manatee.’

‘We have a manatee skeleton,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Otherwise known as Columbus’s mermaid, since the men on his ship mistook it for such a creature – just the thing to interest you. Although it would not help you very much, Reverend, because I believe it’s a warm water creature. You are looking for a mermaid that can survive around the cold shores of the west coast of Scotland.’

‘I am fully aware of that, thank you, Mr Nicols, though it is most kind of you to point it out.’

He gave a small mock bow, and led me into a maze of shelves. He waved his arm with largesse across the catacomb of bone collections in Manila boxes and the translucent walls of glass jars where strange, pickled creatures swam, pale and cramped.

‘So many donations, and still they come – though oddly enough, not a single mermaid.’ He turned to face me. ‘I do admire you, Reverend. You’re a man of great faith, in your mermaids, in your God, but truly, I am puzzled by you clerics. You do see, don’t you, that once one has read Darwin, one can no longer believe in the account of Creation given to us in Genesis?’

‘But to which account are you referring?’ I said to him mildly. ‘There are two accounts of Creation in Genesis, with quite evident differences, and neither is meant to be read as a scientific journal disclosing God’s methods, my dear boy. St Anselm has long warned us against the heresy of taking such metaphorical accounts literally. They are truthful, but in the way that one sometimes requires a story to reveal to us the truth we cannot see; to answer where we come from, and thus know who we truly are.’

He scowled at me, a very black look, trying to locate a hole in the fabric of my argument so that he might make a larger tear and reveal to me the darkness beyond. Not a contented man, I thought.

‘I only wish men like you would have the courage to wake up, see man for what he is, a most marvellous monkey, but with no immortal qualities, and quite alone in the universe except for his own kind. There you have the observed and scientific truth.’

‘My dear boy,’ I told him, ‘we must never give in to despair. Simply because we have seen and even understood a little more of the processes of the Creator, we should not think we understand all the mysteries of grace.’

Nicols did not reply to that. He took a paper from his pocket, silently looked it over for a while. ‘I saved this for you,’ he said, ‘to help you in your quest for truth.’

I thought he seemed quietly struck by my argument and I thanked him for his kindness.

After he had left me to my work, I unfolded the bill. It was for an impresario at a local fair who was displaying the ‘Marvellous Feejee Mermaid’.

I spent an interesting afternoon studying bone formations in cetaceans. I was no further enlightened as darkness fell, but was particularly glad to find a good edition of Haeckel, and looked forward to spending the evening examining his illustrations of the morphology of the human foetus from fish to lizard to man.

On returning, I found that Fanny had gone to a great deal of trouble to arrange a supper whereby I could meet various suitable young ladies of her circle. All three of them seemed very happy to make the acquaintance of an unattached bachelor – even more so since my reputation had once again gone before me, and they wanted to hear stories about my mermaid. All three ladies declared themselves quite willing to believe in her, and on reading the notice about the Feejee mermaid, they became most excitable about the possibility of setting eyes upon such a phenomenon.

It became agreed Matthew and I should accompany Fanny’s friends and visit the show the very next day.

I did not sleep soundly. I had hoped to quietly visit the Feejee mermaid by myself and ascertain whether this was a genuine specimen of something extraordinary or mere trickery. I had no wish to examine the specimen in front of an excitable and voluble audience in bonnets and lace. But I was also kept awake by my own impatience. What if this were to be my first concrete evidence? I tossed and turned, feeling exhausted and enervated. The rich food, along with so many feminine attentions – three soft kisses and three tender hands as the ladies left – had thoroughly undone the regime of quiet austerity I had followed until recently. It takes so little to awaken the appetites.

When I finally slept, flushed by wine and roast beef, those three soft hands woke me once again in the small hours with dreams that I hastily banished from my mind. It is indeed the work of Sisyphus to train the body into the ways of faith and chastity.

*   *   *

We did not buy tickets to go into the main tent for the matinee performance, but stayed in the side enclosure where exhibits of freaks and marvels were on display. A steam organ was gaily playing a military tune, the little wooden martinets banging cymbals and bells in time with the music. Smells of burned sugar and the dung of frightened animals pervaded the air. We passed a lion in a cage, too elderly and sick to frighten any creature, and an elephant chained to a post, moving to and fro on the spot as if in pain.

The Temple of Neptune was easily found, shrouded as it was in green silk drapes. At the entrance stood Neptune himself. He wore a crown and trident and the surly face of a man who has bare legs on a chilly morning. He called out in a thick Glasgow accent for us to come see the beautiful mermaid. I must admit that I hastened towards the entrance and promptly paid for all our tickets, anxious to understand the mystery of what lay inside.

The little creature was not alive. It was displayed in a glass case decorated with shells and paper sea plants. It had a grotesque little face, wizened by the preserving balm, wild, staring eyes and a mouth stretched in a permanent grimace. Skinny arms paddled the air as if frozen in the act of swimming, with the hair or mane artfully spread to resemble the motion of water. At the waist, the shrivelled creature was joined to what appeared to be the badly attached lower half of a large fish. It was clearly a trickery of taxidermy, nothing more than a small monkey with the appearance of a human goblin, joined at the mid section with a fish and painted in layers of brown varnish.

It was only then that I recalled Nicols’s manner as he handed me the advertisement for the mermaid, and finally read the malice in his eye.

The ladies said nothing, but once they were sure that I was not taken in by this circus trick, they declared it as ugly as sin, and a perfect fright.

It had been foolish of me to expect anything else: from the depression that fell upon my mood like a sudden drop in the barometer, I realised that I had been expecting a great deal. So much had I longed to find proof of my elusive, postulated link, that I had hoped to find truth in a circus! I was ashamed to be so caught out in front of Matthew and Fanny’s friends.

The ladies looked most discomfited and spared my feelings by declaring that they had a luncheon appointment that they must hurry to attend.

Matthew and I returned towards the house, neither of us inclined to talk, making our way through the press of crowds along the streets. Below, the steep valley and green park that run through the city gave a dizzying perspective on yet more people thirty feet below.

As I looked down into the park, I saw, walking along the path, a girl with long red hair and a slim green dress, and thought how like Moira she seemed. I found myself most unreasonably disappointed that it was not my Moira, and felt then an even greater longing to be back in my study overlooking a wide sea that was blue as stained glass, and with the peat’s tarry, sweet smell in the fireplace.

Of course, she would soon have something to say about the varnished monkey fish. It was this thought that cheered me up most, quite what Moira would have to say about Mr Barnum.

When we got back to the house, the maid greeted us in a whisper: there was someone waiting to see the Master and the Reverend Ferguson in the drawing room. Fanny was asleep upstairs, and the maid had been left with strict instructions not to wake her, but the person had insisted upon coming in and sitting in the drawing room until the Master returned, and had been waiting there almost an hour.

I could not understand why Matthew’s maid was speaking in such an overawed tone. Then Matthew showed me a calling card of the grandest kind, announcing a Lady Erquart of Grosvenor Square, London.

‘What the deuce?’ said Matthew. ‘Must be some hospital charity looking for subscribers.’

In the drawing room, we found a lady wearing the type of elegant costume that speaks of great wealth, holding herself with a bearing that assumes an aristocratic standing in the world’s eyes.

‘Please forgive my intrusion,’ she said, rising and coming towards us. ‘You must wonder at my rudeness imposing upon your goodwill in this way, but I wanted to ask if I might speak with Reverend Ferguson.’

‘I can only admire the soundness of your judgement in seeking the advice of my friend,’ Matthew said, and indicated for us to sit, taking his accustomed place.

‘I am embarrassed to have to ask a further kindness,’ she added, not taking her seat, ‘but it is essential that I speak to the minister in confidence.’

‘Oh yes, indeed, indeed,’ said Matthew, ‘but of course.’ Rising to give a quick nod, he hastened from the room.

She sat down and I saw that she was holding a small envelope.

‘Reverend Ferguson, it may help if I introduce myself fully. I am the sister of Lady Marstone, now deceased, and the aunt of Katriona Marstone. I have come to ask of you a very great favour.’

She held out the letter.

‘It is a great imposition, I know, but please would you give this to my niece, without Lord Marstone seeing or knowing anything about it. Since my sister passed away and my niece was called home to join her father, we have heard very little news from her. Of late there has been none at all. I am sure that Marstone is destroying my letters before they reach Katriona. She must think we have stopped caring.’

‘There must be some misunderstanding. I am sure His Lordship…’

She continued to hold out the letter. ‘Please,’ was all she said.

Though she offered no further explanation, the urgency of her appeal was such that I said, ‘I will be happy to convey your letter to her, with all discretion.’

‘I am so very grateful. I heard through an acquaintance that you would be here during my visit to Edinburgh. You see, when Katriona last wrote, she mentioned you – that you have been kind to her; and so I hoped that if I found you, you might help us.’

From the heat in my cheeks, I felt I must have blushed a deep red.

Lady Erquart stood up as I took the letter. She leaned in very close and spoke in a low, emphatic voice.

‘There is one more thing. If she ever needs me, will you tell her she can contact me through this address? The lady who lives there will make sure Katriona can come to me in London. I am embarrassed to be reduced to such subterfuge, but it is almost impossible to cross a man like Marstone.’ She gave me a second note. This one had my name inscribed on the front. I began to open it and she nodded to me to continue. Inside she had written the name of a fishing family who lived down near Rodel harbour on the island.

‘If Katriona ever wants me, the good people there will help her.’

‘But surely Katriona can travel to visit you herself, when the season begins?’ I began.

‘He won’t let her leave. He’ll never willingly let her leave. It is a great comfort to me to know that she has a minister as a friend and counsellor, a man beyond reproach who will watch for her best interests.’

After she left, both Matthew and I agreed that she seemed very highly strung, and no doubt deeply affected by the death of her sister.

*   *   *

I returned over several days to continue my studies at the museum, taking care to show Nicols a calm and cheerful manner – and making no mention of his trick.

I had thought that it would be hard to leave Edinburgh and return to the meagre amusements of my isolated parish, but I found that the prospect of home gave a lift to my heart. Matthew made me a handsome present of two volumes – an account of Reverend Brand’s visit to the Western Isles dated 1790, including further recorded sightings of merpeople, and a slim volume on the Nordic names common along the western seaboard. He had marked with a piece of paper a page that mentioned the name McOdrum.

‘You must see inside,’ he said with eagerness, ‘for your mother’s family name is quoted.’

McOdrum, from the Norse ‘Son of Odrum, or son of the sea serpent’. This family has attached to its lineage a Norse legend. The family are reputedly descended from the King of Norway, who remarried with a Sami witch. In a fit of jealousy she cursed his sons so that they became seal men or ‘sliochd nan ron’.

Descendants of this family are also reputed to be talented sailors and fishermen, setting out with relish through the roughest of surf.