Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster (23 page)

Dear Elizabeth,

There are impostors! Rogues who sally through London, pretending to be the Monster, trying to usurp his glory. Mrs. Smyth, the lady your Monster attacked more than a year ago, claims to have been assaulted by him again. But did the impostor slice her bottom with a blade? No! She was punched in the face while looking in a shop window. Ridiculous! The Monster would never stoop to such an ungallant action. The second lady to fall victim to an impostor was described by that Angerstein fellow as a middle-sized, very plain and poor woman turned of forty, who was meanly
dressed and carrying a basket of eggs late at night in Charing Cross. The false Monster cut her face! Any person who knows the Monster's deeds is aware that he would not attack such a woman. A plain market woman, a peddler? No, most certainly not. The Monster would not stoop to that.

Yours,

Henry

93 Jermyn Street, London
12 June 1790

Henry,

I have not seen you for two days and pray you will come home and read this letter. It is important—nay, urgent—that you heed my words: the Monster must retire from the stage. He must as you promised me he would! If he resumes his attacks, our fate will be to hang at the end of a rope at Newgate. Groups of men now patrol the street to protect ladies from the Monster. My heart is still pounding as I write this, I am so full of fear.

When we parted from each other at the Duke of Cambridge, you dressed as a rakish gentleman, and I as a dapper rogue in clothing borrowed from the theatre—oh, how I have come to regret that violet frock coat and breeches, the patterned silk stockings and red embroidered waistcoat! It had seemed such a jolly costume to wear for my final performance. But again, I get ahead of myself. Suffice to say, I did as you bade me, knowing that my actions were foolish,
but I truly thought you might finally be persuaded to let the Monster die if I fulfilled your request for a closing performance. While you went off to find your final victim, I made my way along Grafton Street in search of mine, and there I spied a flower seller and thought to add a boutonnière to my disguise. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this flower seller was the Welsh ballet dancer from the flower factory. Such was my fear of recognition that I put everything into my performance as I chose and purchased an artificial flower for a boutonnière. Even so, his eyes remained utterly fixed upon my face, a frown of deep contemplation furrowing his brow. “Have we met before?” he finally asked. I denied the fact, bought several of his artificial posies to hide my consternation and quickly made my way down the street.

Not long after this, I spied a woman walking alone and approached her, nerves still jangling from my encounter. I held out my nosegay to her and, unaccountably, she approached me to smell it, thinking it real, until she spied the hatpin and shrieked. Her cry unnerved me and I took to my heels. That was when I saw the tenacious Welshman watching me from the other side of the street.

All of London is now enjoying the tale of how the Monster threatened “a terrified beauty” with a nosegay, and I have been more than a little terrified myself that the Welshman might tell what he saw to the magistrate in hopes of pocketing Angerstein's damnable reward. But then it occurred to me that a seller of artificial posies may be viewed with considerable suspicion by those eager to corner our
Monster. Indeed, as I write, a plan is forming in my mind that may be the saving of us. Dear Henry, I wish this letter could deliver itself of its own accord and bring you home.

Yours,

Elizabeth

LONDON, THURSDAY, 9 JULY 1840

I heard a crackling sound, like feet breaking through a crust of snow; when I tried to lift my head, a fiery brand pierced through it. A shadow loomed over me, a presence.

“Poe, can you hear me? Poe?” A damp coolness soothed my brow. I tried to open my eyes again. A blurred face was above mine. “Can you hear my voice?”

Yes, but very far away
. Or that is what I thought, but could not say. My throat was a desert and my body ached. Again, I tried to lift my eyelids, but light flared into them, glinting like the summer sun on water. I could not place where I was.

“Let me help you up.”

I tried to push myself into a sitting position and felt a flash of pain through my palm. Someone tugged under my arms and I was heaved up. At first my legs refused to follow my commands, but at last I scrabbled upward with assistance and staggered to an armchair, where I collapsed again.

When eventually I opened my eyes, Dupin was seated next to me and a pool of shattered glass was upon the floor.

“Here.” Dupin handed me a damp towel and glass of water. As I placed the cloth against my brow, I saw Dupin's eyes slide to the near empty bottle of cognac upon the table,
but he said nothing. We sat in silence as I sipped at the water and waited for the room to stop moving like a ship upon rough waves.

“Perhaps you should retreat to your bed now. Shall I have them fetch a doctor?” He nodded toward my hand, which was inexplicably bound in a handkerchief, its white stained with fresh blood.

I shook my head and pointed at the letter, which lay on the floor amidst the shattered mirror. Dupin picked it up and brought it to me. I pointed at the shards upon the floor. “The mirror,” I rasped, rattling the sheet of paper. “The mirror.”

Dupin seemed to understand. He retrieved the largest shard and, with shaking hands, I held the note up to the fragment of mirror so he could read its contents.

“
Nemo me impune lacessit
,” he muttered. Dupin looked up at me, his face very serious.

“Your nemesis has been in this room.”

I nodded and my head felt as if a metal spike had been driven into it.

“I must urge you again to avoid that farcical séance. If you go, no good will come of it. He means to harm you—here is the proof.” Dupin shook the note to emphasize his words.

“I must go, don't you see.” I could not raise my voice above a whisper. “There is a message for me. I am certain of it.”

Dupin's brow furrowed; his lips tightened. “You must sleep, Poe. You are still delirious with the cognac.”

Dupin helped me get to my feet and guided me to the bed. He poured another glass of water from the jug, took a small apothecary bottle from his jacket pocket and held it over the glass until three luminous droplets fell into the vessel. I watched as the iridescent liquid roiled—alive and dangerous—then blended chameleon-like into the water around it.

“Drink,” he said.

And when the glass pressed against my mouth, I could not resist. The world receded as did the metronomic pounding in my head and all went black like spilled ink upon paper.

* * *

Moments or perhaps hours later, I heard a voice. “My darlings, my time with you is almost done.” My mother's face emerged from the darkness. It was the color of bed linen, spectrally pale, the bones pressed up against the skin, revealing the shape of her skull. Her parched lips were translucent as a housefly's wings and taut against her ghoulishly exposed teeth. When she coughed, roses flowered on her handkerchief.

“Don't leave us,” I whispered.

“I will watch you from Heaven—remember me from this, for it will be yours.” Her eyes guided mine to the miniature portrait of her on the bedside table. I clasped my mother's skeletal hands in mine, and her breath rattled like an infernal locust as she gripped my fingers with preternatural strength, pulling me into the abyss with her.

“Poe!”

My eyes opened to the shadowy interior of a coach and Dupin's urgent hand upon my shoulder.

“Exhaustion has overcome you. It is not too late to turn back.”

“I was dreaming of my mother.” I put my hand to the place where my locket was concealed under my shirt. “Surely a sign that I must proceed, that my grandmother needs to communicate a message to me through Mrs. Fontaine.”

“She is a charlatan, I assure you.” The coach stopped before Dupin could say more and the coachman rapped to signal that we had reached our destination. I opened the door and stepped out.

“I will go alone if you wish.”

“I wish only that you would see the truth.” But Dupin exited the coach and followed me toward the unexpectedly insalubrious house that was sixteen Bayham Street. It was not difficult to fathom why the coach driver had demanded payment before ferrying us to Camden Town, which he declared was inhabited by beggars, thieves, prostitutes and murderers.

A serving girl with a pockmarked face and a dour manner ushered us into the drawing room, which proved to be a plain room decorated with cobweb skeins and dimly lit by a few tapers set in wall sconces. The wavering light sent shadows scrabbling along the walls and up across the smoke-stained ceiling. The floorboards were bare, and heavy curtains framed tall windows that glinted with moonlight. A round table stood at the room's center and seven chairs encircled it.

Three matrons of advanced years were in a huddle. They were all dressed unappealingly in purple and bedecked with necklaces and brooches featuring silver skulls, coffins, weeping women, willow trees—the memento mori jewelry so fashionable with ladies of a highly sentimental temperament. An elderly gentleman with white whiskers and hair, wearing very thick spectacles, stood quietly to one side, pipe in mouth. The tobacco was pungent and smelled oddly of overripe cherries, which added to the oppressiveness of the surroundings. Moments later, the delightful Mrs. Fontaine joined us. She was dressed ethereally in a cream-colored gown with large sleeves, a wide collar and a flowing lace shawl, which gave her the appearance of an angel in the flickering light.

“Mr. Poe, I am so glad that you have joined us.” Her voice was warm, her expression pleased.

“You have met my friend Chevalier Dupin. He is interested in your work and insisted upon attending.”

“Indeed,” Mrs. Fontaine said. “I do hope we won't disappoint you, Chevalier.” She dipped into the hint of a curtsy; Dupin
inclined his head toward her, his skepticism plain. Mrs. Fontaine did not seem to notice Dupin's rudeness for she tilted her head gently, one ear directed toward the heavens, then nodded. “The spirits wish us to begin,” she announced. “Ladies and gentlemen, will you join me around the table.” She pointed at the chairs. Dupin arched his eyebrow with this pronouncement, but he refrained from comment. Mrs. Fontaine approached the table and rested her hands on the back of a chair. “Ladies, please. Take these seats if you will.” She indicated three chairs at the other side of the table. The three elderly women, who appeared to be sisters, ceased their chattering and sat down where Mrs. Fontaine indicated. “Mr. Poe, here. Professor, perhaps here.”

My seat was to be between the professor and Mrs. Fontaine, which left Dupin situated next to the serving girl and one of the garrulous sisters, who asked in a loud whisper, “Have the spirit guides descended?”

“Yes, I believe so,” Mrs. Fontaine said solemnly. “Can you feel their presence?”

The shortest and plumpest of the sisters contemplated this thought for a moment and declared, “Yes. I feel a presence.”

Dupin cleared his throat and arched his brows again, but I shifted my eyes away from him as his supercilious attitude was beginning to irk me.

“Sarah, would you, please?” Mrs. Fontaine nodded at the wall sconces and the serving girl took a candle-snuffer from her apron pocket and extinguished the tapers, until all that illumined the room was the moonlight. When the girl rejoined the table, Mrs. Fontaine said, “Let us join hands.” Her soft hand enclosed mine, as did the professor's, whose grip was surprisingly strong. Mrs. Fontaine closed her eyes and tipped back her head, her brow furrowed in concentration. I felt her hand grasp mine more tightly. “What did you say?” she asked suddenly. “Are you here, spirit? Have you something to say?” She appeared to
listen intently, her head tilted to one side, her eyes closed tightly. And then, Mrs. Fontaine began to sing a hymn in a clear pleasant voice. Her maid and the three ladies joined in to less agreeable effect. The hymn was unfamiliar to me, and I presumed the same of Dupin. I stole a glance at the professor and found his eyes upon me, or so it seemed as the moonlight danced most oddly upon the glass of his spectacles.

“Would you all please hum along if you do not know the hymn. We must produce enough energy for the spirits to use.” Mrs. Fontaine began to sing more loudly, as did the ladies and girl. The professor commenced a tuneless droning, and I joined in, more mellifluously, I hoped, than the tone-deaf professor. Only Dupin remained silent. As the volume of the living increased, the temperature of the room seemed to descend until it felt as if it were the middle of winter rather than a warm July night.

“Do you feel them?” Mrs. Fontaine whispered. “They have arrived, most surely. Sing!”

The ladies near shouted out the rollicking hymn and without instruction we began to undulate our clasped hands. There was a loud tapping upon the table, followed by a muffled shriek from one of the ladies.

“Do not break the circle,” Mrs. Fontaine cried out. “Our energy must be unified. Do not break the circle until the spirit has gained strength!” Her hand clasped mine more firmly, as did the professor's. “Do you hear me, spirit? Rap twice for yes.”

Two loud taps followed her words. Despite the dim light, I could see that all hands were held firmly clasped above the table and a chill ran through me.

“Have you come with a message? Rap twice for yes and once for no.”

Again, two loud taps.

“For whom is the message intended, spirit?”

I wondered how the spirit would manage this with a simple
“yes” or “no” and then the most uncanny thing happened. An object fell from the gloom and landed upon the table. The three ladies shrieked and broke the circle, pressing their hands up to their astonished mouths.

“Thank you, spirit. Thank you.” Mrs. Fontaine reached across the table and picked up the object. “A rose. A
white
rose. It symbolizes purity of spirit, eternal faithful love, and Heaven. It is for you, Miss Castleton. It is from a young man.”