White Stone Day (9 page)

objection, though the procedure must be none too comfortable. While
chopping the contessa, the medium's trance seems to deepen until,
groaning aloud, he begins to pace about the room feverishly with one
hand to his forehead. Coming to a halt, the medium declares, in a
stentorian basso, He is very strong and tall!, at which point he
appears to grow several inches, to a height of about six feet, while
a gap of some four inches appears between the bottom of his waistcoat
and the waist–band of his trousers. Moving to the window, Miss
Grendell gestures silently in the direction of the medium's feet,
pointing out that they are now hovering six inches above the floor.
Whitty remains unimpressed, having seen that sort of thing achieved
with mirrors. As though in response to his impertinent scepticism,
the psychic drops to the floor and, with an embarrassed expression,
returns to his seat. After another unbearable pause, in the voice of
a young woman, Dr Williams asks for writing materials. These are
delivered into his hand; his fingers have become so rigid that only
with difficulty can the moon– faced woman insert the pencil
between them. Now his entire arm, seemingly possessed on its own,
begins to write a message in French, in a small, feminine script.
'Chantal!' gasps the bereaved young lawyer upon viewing the
handwriting, and begins to weep with deep, heaving sobs. In wiping
away tears he loses his grip upon his neighbour, breaks the chain,
and the writing stops in mid–sentence – whereupon the
medium leaps to his feet in a kind of quivering fit, as though the
tendons in his neck were about to break through the skin. David has
come back! David's feet are on the ground! he shrieks, in the voice
of the old woman. David? Odd, that that name should come up here and
now, Whitty thinks. 50 BUCKINGHAM GATE Who is the witty man? cries
the old woman, seemingly from deep within that bulbous head. The
medium swivels his rigid body forward to confront Mr Willows
directly. Who is the witty man? 'I am afraid, sir and/or madam, that
I do not understand you,' Whitty replies. 'Sir, it concerns David,
and the circumstances surrounding his death, and his wish to proclaim
the fate of the witty man!' says Miss Grendell, acting as
interpreter. 'I fear I know nothing of what you say,' insists Whitty,
while the others, the duke in particular, observe him with new
interest. David has come to speak to you. Do you object to his doing
so? 'Certainly not, though he has mistaken me for somebody else.'
Then he will now sit down beside you. A chair next the window moves
on its own from the wall, waddles across the carpet and lodges itself
between Whitty and Miss Lang– Cormack, who makes room for the
animate object as naturally as though it were a child come to say
good–night. David is now seated beside you, and has placed his
hand upon your shoulder. Curiously, he can indeed feel something
press his left shoulder with the force of a highly focused wind.
Mesmerism, thinks Whitty. That is the explanation. David wishes the
witty man to know that he did not do what he is said to have done,
and he did not die as he is said to have died. 'All of this means
nothing to me whatsoever, sir,' Whitty insists. He is perspiring
despite the chill, and his vision has begun to tunnel. David wishes
you to know that God's justice is very different from man's. That
God's justice will see him right. He says that it is the nature of
the game we are playing on earth. 'Does David despair of human
justice taking its course?' asks Whitty, endeavouring to remain
alert, despite the dizziness which has come over him. Oh dear no,
human justice is necessary for the well–being of society. out
David cannot interfere, and. . . ah. Something is weighing upon his
mind. He wants to know if you sense how hot his tears are. Seated
opposite the seemingly empty chair, Miss Lang–Cormack taps
whitty upon the arm and points to his sleeve, her bloodless mouth in
the shape of a smile. Drops of moisture have appeared upon the
material. 51 WHITE STONE DAY Continues the voice of the old woman:
David says, 'Oh Edmund, there are things I wish to tell you that 1
cannot! That 1 did not live as you think I lived! That I did not die
as you think 1 died!' Edmund? Whitty hears himself address the medium
in a strange, tight whisper: 'Though I am not the person he seeks, I
must nonetheless ask, what it is David wishes me to know?' Abruptly
the chair beside the correspondent falls backward with a crash and
the medium springs to his feet, palms flat on the table, eyes wide
open, exclaiming in a voice which is no longer that of an old woman
but that of Dr Gilbert Williams himself – or rather, a
terrified Bill Williams, who does not wish to take any further part
in the communication. 'I will not permit it! It is too horrible! Oh,
it is horrible! It is dreadful! My God, it is so horrible that if he
does not stop I shall – Wait! Stop! Somebody has broken the
chain!1 Whitty has done just that, having collapsed upon the carpet
in a swoon beside the fallen chair. The Duke of Danbury and Mr Lush
exchange a long, significant glance, as if to say, And what is to be
done about this? 52 9

Plant's
Inn The enormous old clock above the entrance chimes, or rather
clanks, three times – the loneliest time of night, the hour of
the wolf. Notwithstanding an entire bottle of chlordine and a pint of
hot spiced gin, Whitty's mental state has not improved. Draped over
the empty bar, he lifts a finger to the barkeeper, who does his duty
stoically and wearily: Mrs Plant has given him leave to serve the
correspondent, and it is a tradition that the establishment will
never close while a single patron remains conscious and thirsty. But
where is Mrs Plant? Humphrey insists she is again at confession, but
Whitty does not believe this. In his experience, Mrs Plant is not the
sort of woman to need dispensation from a male, celibate or
otherwise; he thinks it far more likely that she has seen through his
carefully contrived exterior, has glimpsed the burnt–out case
within, and has no further desire for his company. Looking on the
bright side, he is no longer banned outright, although Humphrey keeps
his distance as if Whitty had the pox. David. His brother. The
brother – for it is the first–born who carries the family
name and estate, who represents the aspirations of his ancestors for
a better world. From an early age, David's world was undeniably a
better one, in which one young man could excel in every pursuit he
undertook – physical, mental, spiritual – with an aplomb
simultaneously Roman, Greek – and British. No man was as
incandescently British as David. Six years his junior, Whitty has
spent the better part of his life in David's shadow. In the Whitty
home on Machpelah Street, the two boys came to occupy more and more
distant spheres as they grew up, until by the time David left for
Oxford they might as well have been raised on separate continents.
Notwithstanding, the spectre of David – student, athlete,
distinguished Fellow at St Ambrose College – remained to haunt
the lesser boy – especially after the latter was sent down in
disgrace. Following David's sudden death in 1852 at the age of
thirty–four, (Whitty's age at this moment), it became apparent
that there was no further reason for the family to carry on –
the second–born son being 53 WHITE STONE DAY an unsatisfactory
replacement. And so the house and estate of Richard Whitty, Esq.,
already in decline, underwent its final disintegration, in the way of
an insolvent firm. At the same time, other versions of David's demise
began to surface: that his death only appeared to be a boating
accident, that he had 'made a hole in the water' over some scandal or
other. Whitty has always regarded these stories as the forgeries of
scandalmongers like himself, whose only effect is to highlight
David's elevated existence compared to his brother, rummaging in the
gutter for nuggets of dirt. Not quite good enough, old boy. You may
impress from time to time, but we both know how inferior you are, how
distant from what you should be. How unfortunate that you continue to
slouch about London while I have ceased to exist. . . But what is
Whitty to make of the voice he heard this evening at 5 Buckingham
Gate? Could it be that the rumours were true? That I did not live as
you think 1 lived! That I did not die as you think I died! The voice
of the barkeeper interrupts his gloomy reverie: 'Sir, I beg you to
finish drinking, for I am a family man with two children. Surely, Mr
Whitty, sir, even a man of your stripe once possessed a family.' What
the devil does he mean by that: 'Reunite with your family, Humphrey,'
he mutters through lips which have grown numb. 'Blessings upon you.
Yet I seek an audience with Mrs Plant. To that end I shall return
tomorrow, and the morrow after that. Unless she sells the place or
burns it down, Mrs Plant must eventually show her face.' Whitty
rises, finds his feet and totters out of the building, with the stiff
dignity of the truly and consciously impaired. HOISTED UPON HIS OWN
PETARD A Gadfly Meets His Match by Alastair Fraser Special
Correspondent Dodd's It gives this correspondent no pleasure to kick
a colleague when he is down. However, when a man plays a leading role
in his own misfortune, learns nothing from it, then compounds it with
repeated misbehaviour, it falls upon the conscientious among us to be
cruel in order to be kind: to take up the scalpel of truth, cut
through the skin and lay bare the muscles; 54 PLANT'S INN to probe
and to penetrate until all is revealed, even to the grinning skull!
We refer, sadly, to Mr Edmund Whitty, who, from time to time,
scribbles upon the pages of a tottering weekly, notorious as the most
corrupt, irresponsible publication that was ever visited upon any
population. Having no equal in disgrace, Mr Whitty seeks to elevate
his reputation by undermining another – in this case, by
mocking a scientific investigation in the public interest. Of course
that is our man's habitual posture: to play the devil's advocate, to
muddy the waters of fact, and to float a livelihood upon a sediment
of confusion. Thus it transpires that the correspondent for The
Falcon, under an assumed name, fraudulently presented himself before
Dr Gilbert Williams, the eminent psychic, as well as the Duke of
Danbury, who accepted Mr Whitty into his home in good faith. Having
thus gained entry, this shameless party set about sabotaging the
experiment, thereby to dismiss the entire endeavour with the smug
cynicism of the professional spoiler. What follows should serve as a
warning to those who would enter the psychic world with supercilious
intent. In the interest of truth, we must now disclose a painful fact
which bears upon the events to follow: that our friend was preceded
at Oxford (from which he was later sent down in disgrace) by an older
brother, name of David, who died by drowning. All this is in the
public record. Less well–known are the rumours – namely,
that the elder Whitty died by his own hand. When the medium initiated
the seance, having attained a trance–like state, what was the
first word to issue from his mouth? David. And the second? Whitty.
Overcome no doubt by shame, our man fled the house in what can only
be described as a state of dementia. We pray for Mr Whitty's speedy
recovery, and we hope that he has finally received an education.

A
scandalous writer named Whitty Who sought to make hay in the city
Himself did expose And bloodied his nose And drowned in a sump of
self–pity.

5
5

10
Eastcheap The black gentleman's brougham, an emblem of upper–class
anonymity, drifts with the prevailing current down Gracechurch Street
and past the British Bank of West Africa, the driver having been
instructed to trace a circular pattern between London Bridge and
Tower Bridge. This is not an unusual directive: of the crush of
vehicles moving lugubriously through the streets, easily a third
serve as temporary offices, meeting–rooms, drinking–rooms,
and – with closed window curtains – bedrooms. Contrary to
public perception, London does not have a traffic problem unless one
is actually attempting to go somewhere. Directing his horse with
slight, automatic movements of the wrist, the half–asleep
driver threads his vehicle past the Guardian Assurance and the London
and Eastern Trade, then past the Corn Exchange. Meanwhile below him,
within the darkened, leather–tufted interior, three men confer:
'Gentlemen, it is my painful duty to inform you that, due to your
negligence, the subject died in transit. My employer is greatly
distressed.' Though the speaker is dressed in black, his appearance
is strangely comic, in the way of an aged child or dwarf. One gloved
hand removes his pot–hat and places it in his lap, uncovering a
head of wiry, colourless hair, like the antennae on a specimen of
undersea plant life. Thick whiskers of a similar texture frame a pair
of cheeks the colour of claret and a punctilious button nose. His
eyes, however, are devoid of humour as they await a response from his
two companions, with the trepidation of a physical coward in the
presence of danger. 'Dear Jesus, Mr Robin, sir, did I not caution you
on the chemical?' Weeks says to his superior, while obsessively
scratching his arm with the thumbless hand. 'Cursed we be now, sir,
damned souls in hell! Women and children . . .' 'At ease, Mr Weeks,'
replies Robin. His eyes are concealed by dark glasses; a narrow shaft
of daylight from between the velvet curtain illuminates his sleeve of
faded serge, with its tracings of pips and stripes. 56 EASTCHEAP
Weeks continues to scratch his arm as though he would like to tear it
off, the four fingers clenching and unclenching. 'Women and children
'Mr Weeks! Chaffer up, and that is an order!' Robin maintains an
impassive countenance – the result of temperament, training,
and scar– tissue. 'Tot, corporal.' Weeks drinks deeply from the
pewter flask, while Robin undertakes a formal response to the charge
of negligence. 'Unaccustomed as we were to the chemistry, sir, we
performed the act as instructed. With respect, we carried out our
orders. If trouble followed, it is because we were not properly
briefed for the mission.' 'Point taken,' concedes Lush. 'However, I
assure you that the courts, and the hangman, would see it otherwise.'
'We of the 2nd Infantry Brigade have faced death before,' replies
Weeks. 'Yet before we succumb to the enemy there will be casualties,
sir. Civilian casualties, if you get my meaning, Mr Lush, sir.' The
estate manager can feel the eyes glare at him from behind the dark
glasses; the inside of his mouth grows dry at the thought of what
those eyes have seen. Lush has none of their nerve, their
ruthlessness, just as he lacks the duke's sangfroid. With Lush,
killing is a miserable business. He is heartsick for weeks afterward;
if he is not of the quality, neither is he a brute. His gaze falls
upon the mutilated hand of the corporal, like a red claw – a
symbol of the unspeakable acts it has committed – and he
cautions himself not to push these men too far. 'I assure you there
is no need for such dire speculation, gentlemen. As long as you
remain under his Grace's protection, your position is secure. As a
gesture of his good faith, he has instructed me to remit to you the
sum of £10.' Lush removes an envelope from the side–pocket
of his coat, where it has rested next to the most recent issue of
Dodd's, and places it in the hand of the superior officer. Robin
separates the notes, rubs them between his fingers, and passes them
to the corporal for visual inspection. 'Is it really £10, Mr
Weeks? And is the currency genuine?' 'It is, Mr Robin. And it is.'
The corporal has never before possessed such a sum at one time, on
either side of the ocean. 'Most generous of him, sir,' continues
Robin, maintaining a neutral aspect. 'One wonders what his Grace
might be retaining for such a sum?' 57 WHITE STONE DAY 'Only your
services, gentlemen – when and as required.' Which will be soon
enough, thinks the estate manager. 'Auxiliary troops, sort of thing,'
says Robin. 'Such forces might be required to do many things.' 'My
employer wishes it known that he is touched by your plight. Soldiers
of the realm who have given their all for queen and country, and have
been repaid with a handful of dust. A beastly disgrace, was the term
he used.' 'Prettily said and most appreciated,' replies Robin,
evenly. 'I take it that his Lordship knows a thing or two about
disgrace.' A canny devil, Lush thinks. 'Of course, you are at liberty
to refuse his protection. His Grace will intrude on no man's liberty.
As Englishmen you may take any course you prefer, however destructive
it may prove to your own interests.' Weeks's hand has ceased to
scratch the arm; its mate is no longer clenched in a fist like a knot
of wood – nor have his eyes strayed from the cash it contains.
'Give me the money, Mr Weeks,' says Robin. With a curt nod to Lush,
he carefully folds the notes into precise rectangles and places them
in an inside pocket. The estate manager permits himself a small
smile. Capital. It is done. The photographs are taken; the negatives
are sufficiently clear and sharp. They will secure an income for some
time, in an industry where distribution is all. And in addition he
has secured these brutes, who will see to the other matter. The air
in the carriage having grown insupportable due to the odour of foul
bodies and rotten teeth, Lush gives the ceiling three quick raps with
the head of his stick in order to bring the carriage to a halt, and
the parley to a speedy close. A chill mist covers them as Weeks steps
from the carriage, then assists Robin (virtually sightless before
dusk), whose boot he sets upon the brass step–cap, whose arm he
steadies for the drop to the cobbles. 'Where are we, Mr Weeks? Damn
this city, where the daylight is dim and glaring at the same time!
Position, corporal!' 'Eastcheap, I'll warrant, sir,' replies Weeks,
gloomily, for the dead girl still weighs upon him. Eliza, she called
herself when they snatched her off the street. Eliza, who worked at a
public house. A good girl she called herself, though of course they
all say that. 'Even with this windfall, sir,' he says, 'I'd rather we
was back in India.' 58 EASTCHEAP 'Not an option, Mr Weeks. We must
forward ho, or fall on our bayonets.' 'What do you make of it all,
sir?' 'That there is more to London than we ever imagined.' 'True,'
agrees the corporal without enthusiasm – then glances back over
his shoulder, just as the brougham pulls into traffic, unveiling a
sight which causes the Indian–born Englishman to gasp aloud.
'Jesus, Mary and Joseph, sir.' 'What is it, Mr Weeks?' 'It is the
Tower of London. By my honour, sir, the very thing. Seen it in
pictures, sir.' 'Good heavens. Are you sure?' 'I see the White Tower
for certain.' 'Do you see the gun, Mr Weeks? The big gun?' 'I do,
sir, yes, I believe that is what it is.' 'That gun was cast by
Solyman the Magnificent.' 'Go on with you, sir. I did not know that.'
'Studied the Tower in school. Mr Shakespeare mentions it often. By
the deuce, I should like to see the spot where they drowned the child
princes in malmsey wine.' The death of children causes the corporal
again to sink into a brown study. 'She were an English girl, sir.
English women and children . . .' 'Stop it, Mr Weeks. We serve the
quality now. It is not our place to question our orders any more than
if they came from the queen.' 'The queen, sir. God save her!' 'Hear,
hear, Mr Weeks.' Robin reaches inside his coat and extracts the
folded envelope from his chest pocket. 'Position secured, corporal?'
'Secured, sir!' 'Calls for a spot of leave, I should say.' 'A roust
in town, sir? A go at the bints?' 'High time, Mr Weeks.' 'Aye, sir!'
'Notify the company at once.' No harm in a bit of fun, thinks Weeks
to himself as the brougham disappears up Crutched Friars. For we is
damned souls already. 59 11