Mary Toft; or, the Rabbit Queen

by Dexter Palmer

  As Mary muttered meaninglessly and kicked her legs in a quick flurry, the frayed hem of her nightgown riding up past her knees, Joshua slipped his hand into hers and gave Crispin his quiet assent. Once she calmed down, Crispin approached the bed, awkwardly leaned over her, and, clumsily bracing himself on the bed as if to touch her as little as possible, rested his head on her abdomen, the thin cloth of the nightgown between his ear and her flesh. He closed his eyes and concentrated.

  There was silence in the room for a minute or two as the minister listened; then, quietly, he said, “I hear it.”

  Then, once again, more firmly: “I hear it.”

  He stood, turning to John Howard. “I have never encountered anything as strange as this,” he said. “Inside her, in her stomach, I heard the sounds of…opposing forces. As of enormous rocks grinding against each other, deep in the bowels of the earth. And beneath those grinding noises, what, for a moment, sounded like a scream, of an animal being slaughtered.”

  “The creatures have always come out in pieces,” said John.

  “A possible consequence of whatever is compelling this poor woman’s body to do what it was never meant to do,” Crispin responded. “I believe that the forces that are materializing these beings inside her are also tearing them apart.”

  Mary screamed then, a throat-ripping wail that to John had become a familiar signal, even as it stabbed a needle into his ear. “Speculation will have to wait,” he said. “It’s time—we should take our positions.”

  * * *

  *

  Afterward, when the rabbit had been delivered, its parts wrapped in a cloth that John had brought with him—he would take it home where it would join his collection of three others of the five rabbits birthed thus far, tightly sealed in glass jars, suspended in spirits—John and Joshua led Mary into the other room of the house, where she settled herself in a chair by the window, her joints stiff. “She lies on her back now more than she sits or stands,” Joshua said quietly. She looked through the curtains into the yard beyond, at the boy James running around in merry circles, making himself dizzy. A faint, exhausted smile crossed her face.

  Placing a stool before her, John sat down so that he could look directly into her eyes. “Mary,” he said, leaning toward her, hands clasped together. “I believe that we approach a hypothesis that may explain your condition. I must ask you—have you had any dreams? Dreams that play out in the same manner each night, their content unusual, but predictable?”

  She continued to look out the window for a moment longer, bathing her face in the sunlight. Then she slowly turned to John, eyes heavy-lidded, mouth slack, and spoke, each word a labor.

  *

  Night after night. Every night.

  I have to harvest the hops. It has to be done tonight. What isn’t saved tonight will be ruined by the locusts at dawn. I have to do it alone. No one else understands.

  I am in the hop fields with the scythe. Sky full of twinkling stars. Blood-red full moon. Red light on the fields. Red light on my skin.

  Sometimes the swarm of locusts crosses in front of the moon and it blocks out the light. They are waiting for the sun, and then they will come down and feed.

  I tried to tell the others but no one else would listen. All they wanted to do was sleep.

  Swinging the scythe in the red moonlight. Back and forth. Back and forth. I must cut faster. No time to look. No time to aim. Soon I will make a mistake. But if I don’t finish the harvest the world will starve.

  The blade bites into flesh instead of flying quick through the stalks like it should.

  I look down and a dead rabbit lies on the ground. Head cut off of its body.

  Every time I have the dream I know I’ve had it before. I know I shouldn’t swing the scythe when I do, and I do it anyway. And the rabbit always dies.

  Its mate is next to it, and it comes up on its hind legs, like it’s a man. Its paws have five toes, but not fingernails. Claws. It speaks. It says, You killed the queen. Now you’re the new queen.

  I say I’m a woman. It says, You killed the queen, and now you’re the new queen! You’re a God-damned sinner and you’re the queen. Now you have to go into the cave.

  Then I see the entrance to the cave. A dark wet slit in a sheer wall of rock. Inside it, a thousand glittering eyes, like a thousand stars.

  The rabbit points with its paw that is a hand and says, Go. You’re a sinner! Go!

  I walk toward the cave, and the entrance spreads open for me. The ground shakes as the rock shifts.

  The entrance shuts behind me as I walk through, and all the lights in all the eyes go out, and now it’s dark.

  Then there is fur. Everywhere, all over me, as the rabbits swarm me and chew through my clothes with their teeth and drag me down. Fur, brushing against my cheeks, smothering my face, pushing against my secret places. Pressing me down, with more of them piling on top, and more, and more, and more. Clothing damp from rabbit piss. Sharp stink of rabbit shit, so strong I can’t breathe.

  I cry out as one of my ribs cracks from the weight, then another. A rabbit stuffs its paw into my mouth to stop my scream, and I choke as it shreds my tongue into ribbons.

  I’m a queen with a mouth full of blood. And they’re going to silence me. They’re going to make a home inside me. They’re going to crush me. They’re going to kill me. Every night. Night after night.

  Then I wake.

  | CHAPTER VII.

  FOOLSCAP.

  Zachary spent the following afternoon and evening—of Tuesday, October 25—with his parents, at his father’s request to John Howard. The minister had seemed shaken over the events of the previous few days, and in any case John would not have denied the poor man the solace of family. Besides, he had his own work to do, a letter to write: a draft, a revision, and four fair copies, those last to be dispatched to London on tomorrow morning’s coach. If he was lucky, the intended recipients would have them in hand by Thursday afternoon.

  John removed a sheet of foolscap from his desk drawer, folded it neatly in half, and drew the blade of a letter opener down the crease, splitting the paper in two. Placing one half to the side, he dipped quill in inkpot and began to scratch at the other: Dear Sir: I am a surgeon in the town of Godalming, who has come upon a most unusual case that may reward your attention. He paused, drew a line through unusual, and in smaller letters, wrote notable above it; then he drew a second line through notable and wrote significant in its place, in smaller letters still. “Momentous?” he said to himself; then he looked up to see Alice, standing in the doorway to his office, the smallest of smiles on her face.

  John saw that she held a ledger. Reluctantly, knowing what was coming, he put down his pen.

  “Love,” she said, entering as she pointedly ignored his unvoiced gripe, “the month of October nears its end, and I harbor concerns. I ask you not to look at me as your usual dream of a helpmeet—brimming over with wit and charm; skilled before a stove; still lithe and nubile in her middle years—but as a bookkeeper, severe and humorless, head full of naught but numbers.” She placed the ledger on the desk and opened it to its most recent entries. “And most displeased.”

  She tapped the page with the tip of her index finger. “Toft, Toft, Toft. Once every two or three days. Visit after visit, but no fee charged, no income gained—”

  “I have, in fact, been giving them money,” John said quietly, eyes still on the paper before him. “Not much. A shilling or two, each time. They seem to need it.”

  “One might easily deduce my opinion,” replied Alice evenly, “that even if they are in need of charity, they do not deserve it from us.”

  John’s eyebrows arched as he looked up at her. “They will,” he said firmly, “receive our charity.”

  Alice stepped back, exhaling, and John thought he heard a single word carried on that breath, something like tool or fool, bu
t could not be sure. No matter. He was not deaf: if she did not speak clearly, she did not mean to be heard.

  “Are you writing a letter?” Alice asked, her voice suddenly cheery and light. “To whom?”

  “Certain persons of distinction,” said John. “In London.”

  “Are they distinct enough to have been granted names of their own?”

  “They are surgeons of considerable esteem,” he replied. “Perhaps one or two will pay a visit, and you will learn their names then.”

  “I see,” said Alice, the sparkle leaving her voice, “that you are determined to follow this path until it reaches its end.”

  “I am. I cannot do otherwise. And I do hope that I will eventually convince you to join me, or at least not to stand in my way.”

  “Oh, I would never dream of standing in your way,” said Alice, backing away from the desk with her hands clasped before her, in a manner that John could not help but feel was slightly mocking. “I presume young Zachary will be at his parents’ for supper this evening,” she continued, changing the subject. “Shall I throw together something simple for the two of us then? I’ve skinned a rat that might be nice, sautéed.”

  “Whatever you please,” John said. His attention had already drifted back to the paper before him, well before his wife had finished speaking. A most magnificent case? No. But: important. Yes. A most important case.

  * * *

  *

  The pile of meat that Zachary’s mother ladled onto his plate for supper was more of it than he’d eat in three days at the Howards’—the boy’s bowels quivered at the mere sight of all those hunks of mutton, heavily peppered and slathered in gravy. It was as if Clara Walsh somehow believed that Zachary was forced to subsist on air and dreams when not in her presence, and had to make up the lost nutrition whenever he could escape from beneath the Howards’ watchful gazes.

  Crispin, on the other hand, devoured his food, delivering his customary supper monologue to Zachary and Clara as he chewed. “I had my doubts about you becoming an apprentice to that man,” he said to Zachary. “We’ve had our disagreements. But I admit my error—I must concede that God’s ways are often inscrutable, even to a man who has dedicated his life to their understanding. I never—never!—expected the Lord to reveal himself to me so clearly, beyond doubt.”

  “I confess,” Clara said, “that I do not understand why the Lord would select such a strange and troubling manner of revelation. I would think he would speak in plain English instead of riddles and rebuses, if he wished to be sure of being understood.”

  Eyes on the plate before her, she continued quietly: “And I know not what message to read in a rabbit birthed of human flesh, other than the news of my own fright, my own confusion.”

  Crispin snorted, shaking his head at Clara dismissively. “Shall I remind you of the tale of Belshazzar’s feast? The Babylonian king hosts a meal for a thousand lords, who stuff their bellies with fine food and drink themselves stupid, swilling wine from goblets looted from the Temple of Jerusalem. Then a hand appears, holy and glowing—it carves four words into the stone wall with the tip of its flaming finger, and it vanishes. The Babylonian wise men cannot interpret the message, and so the king summons Daniel, who proves himself wiser than them all when he pronounces: Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. A prophecy. Belshazzar: your kingdom is dying. You are judged and found wanting. Your lands will be split between the Persians and the Medes. Now: why did the Lord not write in a language that the Babylonian wise men could understand? It would have been a simple thing for him to do, to make his meaning plain as day to the king.” He looked at Zachary and at Clara, who both chose to say nothing.

  “Because he wanted to remind them that Daniel, as a Hebrew and a true man of God, was necessary,” Crispin answered himself, as expected. “That even if the Lord’s wisdom is ultimately available to all, he takes care to choose those to whom his ways remain a mystery, and those to whom he speaks clearly, trusting them to act as his interpreters. The strange nature of the message is the message—don’t you see? John Howard was presented with the mystery, but it was rightly left to me to unveil its final meaning. Surgeons know much, but do not know all; men of God know things that no others can know. It is good for all of us to remain aware of this.”

  “How was Daniel able to understand the entire prophecy from just four words?” said Zachary. “How could he have been so sure?”

  “Daniel could decipher the prophecy because he was wise,” replied Crispin, and the scrupulous attention the minister began to pay to his meal signaled the conversation’s end.

  * * *

  *

  On Wednesday morning, John Howard handed his letters personally to the driver of the mail coach passing through Godalming on his way back to London, stressing the urgency of the message. Tipping his hat, the kindly, red-nosed coachman said he’d let his horses know, and gave John his solemn guarantee that his dispatches would arrive in London just as quickly as all the others, and not a moment slower. With a sharp, showy snap of the reins the coach creaked into motion, heading down Godalming’s main street and out of the village. John stood in the center of the road, hand shading his eyes from the morning sun, and he watched the coach until it vanished out of sight over a hill, as if his gaze could impart a motive force to it, compelling it to travel faster.

  When the coach disappeared, John returned to his office, unable to restrain himself from imagining the letters entering the city, their distribution through London’s coffee houses, their delivery to their intended recipients, the hands breaking their seals and opening, the heads of the readers jerked backward by the revelation as surely as if some kind of explosive had been hidden inside. As he performed the sixth delivery of Mary Toft the following day (dropping two more shillings into Joshua Toft’s palm in exchange for the rabbit that he brought back to his office, preserving it in spirits along with the rest), he thought of the missives passing from man to man, of the information being disseminated in quivering voices among all those wonderful Persons of Distinction.

  And in a corner of one of the back pages in the issue of the British Journal published in London on the morning of Friday, October 28, was a brief notice, its details distorted by two days of feverishly relayed hearsay, but the essence of the message still preserved:

  They write from Godalming, that a woman working in a field, saw a rabbit, which she endeavoured to catch, but she could not, being with child at that time: she has since, by the help of a man-midwife, been delivered of several things in the form of dissected rabbits, which are now kept by the said man-midwife at Godalming.

  Thus did John Howard’s troubles begin.

  PART TWO.

  | CHAPTER VIII.

  NATHANAEL ST. ANDRÉ.

  The ongoing presence of the miracle in the midst of the people of Godalming did not prevent them from going about their daily business that November: most of the locals had yet to learn about it, even as the first notice of the event appeared in a newspaper published sixty miles away. For John Howard and Zachary Walsh, the delivery of the creatures from Mary Toft became a matter of routine—on the mornings every two or three days when her husband Joshua arrived at Howard’s office, Joshua no longer even bothered to state his business. John merely nodded, while Zachary retrieved his surgeon’s satchel; then they were off. Conveniently, Mary’s parturitions never occurred on Sundays—Crispin Walsh only half jokingly cited the rabbits’ respect for the Sabbath as further proof that the pregnancies had a clearly divine nature.

  Those villagers who weren’t birthing animals several times each week continued to experience the expected garden-variety afflictions: runny noses; racking coughs; vicious rashes; broken bones. With steps so slow that even Zachary himself was not entirely aware of the progression, he began to become more than a mere apprentice to John, even as his voice finished the breaking that had taken the whole summer, settling down into a rich
baritone that would need its own training, in time. (As it was, he spoke indoors at the same volume as he did on the street, and his whispers would make teacups tremble in their saucers.) He handed tools to John Howard without needing to first hear their names; he bandaged Howard’s patients with a nearly perfect combination of care and efficiency. Though he kept his opinion to himself, Howard believed that even if there were procedures whose ultimate mastery lay years in Zachary’s future, in perhaps another six months the apprentice would be able to sometimes stand beside the surgeon in his own light, rather than huddling in the master’s shadow. Now was as good a time as any to begin acclimating the people of Godalming to the ministrations of another, younger practitioner, to reassure them that in all but the most dire cases, they would be as safe in Zachary’s hands as with Howard himself.

  The perfect opportunity for Zachary’s public trial by fire came on the first Monday in November, about six months after his apprenticeship had begun—the coincidence seemed almost like a deliberate product of fate. That morning Phoebe Sanders, the town crier, appeared at Howard’s door, her son Oliver’s wrist clasped firmly in her hand. “His breath,” she said to the surgeon. “It would shrivel butterflies to ashes. And he can’t speak in a way that any man alive could understand—everything’s a mumble.” Oliver entered the office behind his mother, sallow-faced and enervated in a manner that could not entirely be attributed to the burden of being Phoebe Sanders’s son.