Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster (7 page)

After turning into Southampton Row, I quickly located number forty-seven. It was our first home in London, quite a cozy place where I spent a few pleasant months with Ma and her sister Nancy before being sent away to boarding school in Chelsea. The exterior was tidy enough but not exceptional—a plain brick façade similar to its companions along the row. I had remembered the architecture as far more imposing, but youth's perspective tends to exaggerate the scale of things. I felt an urge to knock on the door and ask to see inside, but decided against this foolish whim. Instead, I walked the short distance back down to number thirty-nine, a rather larger apartment my Pa had rented during our final year in London. While the lodgings were more commodious, they had held little joy for me during my brief time spent within their walls due to my dear Ma's unhappiness. As if in sympathy with this memory, a light rain began to fall, and I unfurled my umbrella. Tempted as I was to return to the comfort of Brown's Genteel Inn, first I wished to go to Russell Square, a park I had visited often with my Aunt Nancy. She was charged with my care when I returned
home from boarding school for holidays or a special weekend, and was typically as eager as I was to escape the confines of our Bloomsbury home when the weather was fine.

When I turned into Russell Square, I entered the park at the entrance near a curious statue that had fascinated me as a child. Francis Russell, fifth Duke of Bedford, had one hand upon a plough and ears of corn clutched in the other. Beneath his pedestal, there was a sheep and four cherubs representing the seasons, all quite unclothed with the exception of a heavily bundled up “Winter.” I had remembered the statue as poetic, imbued with the very spirit of agriculture, but with maturity found it over-stated and somewhat repellent. Keen to further my exploration, I made my way along the horseshoe-shaped pathway under the lime trees, and was pleased to discover that Russell Square was quite as I had remembered it: neatly laid out and well-planted with attractive flowers and shrubbery, not quite the English garden my Ma had so admired, but dignified and pleasing to the eye. Due to the inclement weather, the square was empty of the attractive, well-dressed ladies who had strolled through the pathways when I was a child, which made the place rather less picturesque.

I thought to rest a bit on one of the seats in the trellis-covered shelter, but found a bedraggled woman sitting there, a small child tucked up under her shawl. As I stared at this apparition, an inexplicable sense of dread came over me. Shaking off my nervousness, I set down my umbrella and fumbled inside my frock coat for the purse that hung from my belt, determined to give the woman some coins for her child. Suddenly, my head was blasted with pain, the ground tilted, and I fell to a place of perfect stillness.

* * *

How much later was it that I came back to myself? I could not fathom this with any accuracy. As the world emerged from shadow, I found blue eyes staring into my own and felt damp earth against my cheek. My head throbbed, and there was a tugging at my frock coat and then a hand wormed its way into my trousers pocket. What insult was this? I thrashed out and heard a yelp. When I struggled to a sitting position, a small urchin was squatting next to me. His mother was busily scrambling backward down the footpath, fear imprinted upon her features. Then I heard the sound of running footsteps and turned to see her accomplice dashing in the opposite direction. Another woman! Slight of build and fleet of foot, the treacherous pickpocket vanished. I patted at my chest and discovered with much relief that my locket was still in place. Only my purse was gone, the contents of which I had been willing to give to the woman with the child in charity, but now I had a sore head for my efforts and felt most aggrieved.

“Go to your mother,” I said to the small creature. “Leave me quickly or I will thrash you with this umbrella.” As I shook it feebly, the child scuttled away as fast as its broken shoes would allow.

I got to my feet. The unpleasant sensation of my wet clothing and the additional discomfort of my throbbing head brought me back to full cognizance. As I tidied myself as best I could with my handkerchief, I discovered the most extraordinary thing. In my buttonhole was a small boutonniere of violets—artificial flowers of purple and green velvet so precisely crafted they appeared to be genuine upon first glance. I had most assuredly not been wearing them earlier and the only explanation for their mysterious appearance upon my person was that my attackers had attached them to my frock coat. The thought repelled me so utterly I threw the thing away from me as if it harbored some creeping disease. A deep foreboding
settled upon me, and as much as I tried to divert my thoughts away from those feral mendicants, they haunted me as I made my way back toward Brown's. There was something terribly
familiar
about them. I revisited the attack again and again as I hurried through the London streets—the mind is like a box with many locked compartments and the secrets therein are recovered when the correct key is found. I was determined to find that key. The violet boutonniere tickled at my memory until I remembered where I had first come across those seemingly innocent velvet flowers.

* * *

“You will receive a fine education, my boy. That I promise you. And you will make us proud, won't you, Eddy?”

“I will do my best, Pa.”

It was the day of my interview at the Dubourg boarding school in Chelsea. The school was run by two sisters—the Misses Dubourg—whose brother was a bookkeeper at my father's company. The interview with the two ladies went very well. They declared me a “delightful boy,” so Pa decided to take Ma, Aunt Nancy and me for a celebratory luncheon nearby. We had walked just a short distance from the school when we came across a peculiar character, a gaunt ragbag of a man who wore several hats upon his head and, it seemed, all of his clothing at once, with an old military jacket over the top. He had but one arm and wore a long beard that was yellowed from the sulfurous fumes of hell, or so I imagined. A wonderful wooden ship and an old cap sat in front of him; Aunt Nancy hastily dropped some small coins into the cap as we passed him.

“Have you bought me the ship?” I cried delightedly.

She flushed quite crimson. “Hush,” she whispered as she grabbed my arm and marched me smartly away.

I eventually managed to wriggle out of her grasp and planted myself in front of her. “Why did you pay him for the ship and leave it behind?” I demanded.

“I did not pay him for the ship, Eddy. I gave him money for food.”

“Why give him money? He is a grown man.”

“It is called charity,” my Ma said. “We must be kind to those who suffer. He lost his arm fighting for his country.” She looked anxiously at my Pa as she spoke and was terribly flustered.

“And so he deserved to,” said my Pa, “for indeed he was fighting against us.”

I was mightily confused. “But how do you know that? We did not speak to the man.”

Aunt Nancy sighed with exasperation. “So many questions! It is enough to drive one quite mad.”

“But you will tell me.” I took her hand and my mother's and smiled up at both of them.

“We did not need to speak to the man to know his story,” Pa explained. “His wooden ship informs us that he was a sailor, and the ragged jacket he wears suggests that he has seen battle, as does the empty sleeve of it. A one-armed sailor is not of much use in the navy, and so he must find other ways to make his living, or he must plead for charity.”

“War is an evil thing, Eddy, most particularly war against one's parent nation. You must hope you never are faced with it.”

I nodded, but hoped no such thing. War seemed a great adventure to me, especially battles at sea with flying cannon balls, the pirates' sails ablaze and treasure sinking to the bottom of the sea. Then an extraordinary sight was revealed to me. On the street outside a somber building we came upon a crowd of men in uniforms—both sailors and soldiers—and their uniforms were in a condition as tattered as the men themselves, most of
whom had lost an arm or a leg. As I gazed at the military men, a fearful notion sprang into my head.

“Is there to be another war, Pa? Will they come to fight with us again?” I had no true memory of the War of 1812, but had overheard my adoptive father speak with much fervor of its repercussions on his business.

Pa laughed heartily. “Should those men come to fight us it would be a very short battle.”

I nodded, trying to pretend that I understood, but noted that my Ma frowned at her husband. “Hush, now, John.” She grasped my hand and said, “That is the Royal Military Hospital and those poor men were grievously injured in the war. They sacrificed much for their country and are here to collect a pension for their services.”

This I did not understand. “But surely we are not paid for our sacrifices. A sacrifice is given quite freely.”

My Ma frowned more deeply and my Pa roared with laughter, throwing me into a state of confusion as I had hoped to please both of them with my precocious learning.

“The boy will make a very fine businessman, that is certain! Education will indeed be the making of him.” He slapped his thigh and laughed again.

I was pleased to make my father proud and stared at the bedraggled men, unaware of their precarious position in life. Once I took up residence at the Dubourg School, I became accustomed to seeing beggars—male and female—on the streets of Chelsea and began to recognize several who sat in the same spot every day, their tales written out on cards and placed in front of them or scratched in chalk onto the pavement. I noticed one in particular, a woman who sat daily quite near our school, with her hand outstretched for alms, a basket of artificial nosegays next to her. Sometimes she had an infant wrapped up in her shawl and on other occasions there was a
small child in her lap. I noticed her particularly as I could not fathom how a lady could be a soldier turned beggar, and did not understand at all what the flowers symbolized except perhaps the fallen on the battlefield. It is with shame that I recall my scorn for those poor souls, thinking them indolent wretches just as my entrepreneurial Pa did.

Fate eventually saw to punish me for this haughty contempt. It was the Christmas season, and I was in an excitable mood, very glad to be back home. To give my Ma some respite, Aunt Nancy was charged with taking me to Noah's Ark toy shop in High Holborn. We had a glorious time there, and it was quite dark when we returned to our dwellings on Southampton Row. As we approached closer, I noticed a figure huddled near the entrance, a basket of artificial flowers next to her—it was the beggar woman who sat so often outside my school. She held out a nosegay of dainty violets.

“Here, darling. Come over here. Take one for your mother. It's close on Christmas.”

I looked to my Auntie, but saw that she was engaged in conversation with a man who seemed to be asking for directions. The woman smiled kindly at me. She was a good deal older than my Ma, closer in years to my Pa's mother.

“She can pin it on her dress or in her hair and will look very fine indeed.”

I thought the nosegay would make a good present for my Ma—it was pretty and would look very well on her. “What must I pay you?” I asked.

“What's your name, son?” she asked in return.

“Eddy.”

She nodded. “I've been told your mother was a great actress, Eddy.”

This compliment had the desired effect upon me. “Yes, she was. But she died when I was very young.”

She smiled kindly. “Ah, but you're alive and your new family must be very wealthy.”

I nodded, for so it seemed. “But I do not get much pocket money,” I added, “so I hope the nosegay is not so very dear.”

The beggar lady laughed. “No, indeed it's not, for I will give it to you.” She handed me the bunch of purple velvet violets just as Aunt Nancy joined me.

“It is for Ma,” I said proudly. “A Christmas present.”

She frowned, but my excitement must have persuaded her against making me return the nosegay. “How much?” she asked the beggar lady.

“A penny,” the beggar woman interjected before I could speak. “You won't find a better nosegay made anywhere in London.”

Nancy sighed and fished a coin from her purse before dragging me inside.

Later that same week, Aunt Nancy was charged with taking me to Russell Square, where I forced her to play catch with me until she was quite worn out. She went to fetch us some roasted chestnuts from a vendor not fifty yards away and as I carried on with my game, tossing the ball up into the air as high as I could and running to catch it, I noticed a small child approach my Auntie and tug at her dress. This I found impertinent and was shocked when my Aunt gave the child a bag of chestnuts. But before I could voice my childish rage, the very ground disappeared from under my feet, and I found myself being conveyed at speed through the park, clutched by some stranger whose face I could not see. A dirty rag was stuffed into my mouth, cutting short my yells of anger and terror. I could see little but the ground bouncing beneath my abductor's feet, which were encased in broken-down boots made from grubby, brown leather—men's boots, but worn by a woman with legs like a plough-horse. The reek of her much-patched dress was
similarly equine, months of sweat woven into the fabric and arising from its threads like fumes of manure on a hot day. She wheezed with the effort of carrying me, and as the shock began to subside, I struggled in her inordinately strong arms.

“Hold still, you brat,” she commanded, but I kicked and thrashed like a caught fish until at last we both went tumbling to the ground. I scrambled to my feet and wrenched the filthy kerchief from my mouth as I ran back to Nancy, who threw her arms around me.

“Catch her!” Nancy shrieked as the beggar woman and the child ran for the gate. “Catch her!” But the beggar woman and the child eluded capture. I clung to Nancy, unnerved by my experience. She had lost all color, and I could feel her quivering. “You must not tell your parents of this,” my Auntie said. “Your Ma will be dreadfully upset.”