Mary Toft; or, the Rabbit Queen

by Dexter Palmer

  “I didn’t mean to pose the question in quite so harsh a manner,” said Zachary, startled, “but—yes, we did wonder how much of what we saw was as real as it seemed.”

  “Forgive me, then,” said Anne. “I should not have spoken for you. But it’s a question I receive quite often, and it irritates me no end. Though I suppose that, since your master is treating my father’s illness, you’re entitled to an answer. How much of the exhibition you witnessed was real: that is your question?”

  “Yes—that’s it.” Zachary leaned forward expectantly.

  “Well, to begin with,” Anne said, “I myself am not real. I, Anne Fox, daughter of Nicholas, am an illusion—in your mind; in the mind of your master; even in the mind of my own father. And in the minds of our provincial audiences I am not even my father’s daughter, but a creature of unknown origin, perhaps fathered by Zeus.”

  “Somehow I find myself doubting that,” Zachary replied.

  Reading her absurd claim as an invitation, he reached out to touch her arm as if to verify her corporeality, but she quickly snatched it away. “Stay back, I tell you! You will have to believe me when I say that your hand would pass right through me, and neither of us desires that. Ghostly as I may seem to you, the space that my body occupies is mine; asserting my God-given title to it, though, requires a constant vigil.”

  “You are at a loss to prove your illusory nature, then,” said Zachary, feeling that somehow he wasn’t interpreting this situation correctly. He intended his words as harmlessly flirtatious endearments, meant only to while away the time, but they seemed to be twisting into something else as they traveled between his mouth and Anne’s ear, for reasons he couldn’t understand—in fact, the more Anne spoke, the less he understood her.

  “Consider this,” said Anne. “My dear father is now in consultation with your master, after having been on what I’m meant to believe is a ‘grand adventure.’ I am perhaps expected to think that while I slept one evening he journeyed to the moon, engaged in a sword fight with one of its six-armed inhabitants, and needs his secret wounds treated by a surgeon now that he has returned to earth. I know quite well that his ‘adventure’ took him no farther than a Glastonbury bagnio, and that as a result of an encounter within its walls, he now whimpers and mewls when he pisses. But were he to realize that I was aware of this, he would wonder how an innocent creature like myself came by such knowledge of the world—which, I assure you, resulted merely from keeping my ears open in public places: men seem to think that if they are not looking at me directly, I do not exist—and his idea of what I am would vanish. His daughter would disappear before his very eyes. Just as the version of myself that existed in your mind a few moments ago is vanishing, the one who looked like this—”

  Anne slowly waved her right hand in front of her face, fingers spread wide, palm turned inward, like a magician performing sleight of hand. Once it had passed, Zachary saw that her expression had changed: the squinting stare that he was admittedly finding intimidating—he was starting to feel as if he were made of glass—was replaced with a wide-eyed gaze and beaming smile, the look so different that Zachary felt almost as if the very shape of her face had altered, becoming rounder and more angelic as the bones beneath her skin shifted.

  “Witness a series of physiological wonders of which I am the very least,” Anne said, her voice high and trilling and mocking; then she waved her hand in front of her face again, in the opposite direction, and the expression that Zachary found piercing and uncomfortably austere returned. The trick, if trick you could call it, seemed to make her age five years. “Are you confused?”

  “Most certainly,” said Zachary.

  “Here, I’ve taxed you unduly. Let me relent.” She passed her hand before her face once more, her eyes now sparkling. “Oh, goodness, whatever do you think the ‘grand adventure’ might be to which my dear father referred?” she asked. She giggled, looking away from Zachary as her eyelids fluttered, and Zachary felt a sudden warmth rush to his heart, even though he knew, and had been told directly by the woman just a few moments before, that this was all performance: the look, the ingenuousness, the laugh. Sitting next to Anne he felt baffled, frustrated, stupid, and embarrassed by his own evident stupidity, and the sudden sharp rap at the front door to Howard’s offices came as an unexpected relief.

  Anne smiled at Zachary with a deliberate blankness, her slim, long-fingered hands politely clasped in her lap, as he leapt out of his chair to welcome the guest.

  * * *

  *

  The man at the door had the look of the Londoners who had been proliferating in Godalming these past two weeks, seeming somehow alien even though they hailed from the same nation. He pushed past Zachary as if his welcome onto the threshold were a foregone conclusion; once inside, he turned to face Zachary, offering his hand. “Cyriacus Ahlers, Surgeon to His Majesty’s German Household. I have business with your master—I’ve been sent here by the king to inquire into an unusual case of his.” Ahlers presented a handsomely polished appearance that stopped short of foppishness—his suit was of various shades of gray, accented with gleaming silver buttons; the black cocked hat clamped under his arm was embroidered along its brim with an unostentatious silver lace; and his wig was full and voluminous, with fine, lustrous locks that looked as if they’d be a pleasure to pass one’s fingers through.

  “Your master,” Ahlers prompted. “Where is he?”

  “He’s with a patient,” Zachary said, “but you’re welcome to wait.” He escorted him into Howard’s office, where Anne sat with the same enigmatic smile, looking at the men as they entered. Ahlers offered Anne a slight bow, little more than a tip of the head, gracious in its subtlety.

  John Howard and Nicholas Fox entered slightly after Ahlers had seated himself, Nicholas looking somewhat pale. “You’re in luck, if luck you can call it,” Howard was saying, hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. “Butcher’s-broom is still in bloom, though it’s near the end of the season—in London you ought to be able to find a conserve of the berries easily enough. Thrice daily on bread. Fluids should be plentiful and tepid. Never mind the running; the running is the cure—” As Anne rose to her feet to greet her father, Howard stopped in mid-sentence, startled to see the new guest, who nodded at him knowingly.

  Anne crossed the room, locking gazes with her father despite the three other sets of eyes on her as she walked. She took his hands in hers. “You’re well?” she asked.

  “Better,” said her father. “The good surgeon has provided a temporary relief at a reasonable fee; the science of medicine advances apace. But the final stages of my convalescence are best achieved in London; we ought to return there posthaste. Good day,” he said to Ahlers, then turned and made his way out, Anne following.

  At the last moment she turned to look at the room of assembled men: Howard, Ahlers, and Zachary Walsh. After a bit of playful darting from one man to the other, her scrutiny fell at last on the apprentice. “Zachary?” she said.

  “Ma’am?” He felt himself blushing.

  “Come to London,” she said, the corners of her lips lifting. “Perhaps there are still other versions of myself I have to show you; versions of yourself you haven’t seen.”

  Then, as John Howard put his fingers to his mouth and looked discreetly at the floor, the woman in sapphire glided out of view.

  “Quite an invitation you’ve received, young man,” said Ahlers.

  “It sounded like a command to me,” said Howard. “Be wary, Zachary. Alice spoke to me in that voice, once, when I was young.”

  * * *

  *

  “Now,” said John to the new visitor, “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

  “Cyriacus Ahlers,” said Ahlers, striding across the room with his hand offered in greeting, taking clear pleasure in the melody of his own name. He gripped Howard’s hand and pumped it with three firm, carefully measured shakes. “I a
m honored to hold the title of Surgeon to His Majesty’s German Household, and the king thought it fit to dispatch me here to learn in person about a most unusual case of yours, so unusual that despite his repeated, energetic confirmations, I fear I have misheard. ‘Das Kaninchen,’ he says, but surely this must be some strange German idiom, whose meaning has not yet crossed to England’s shores.” Ahlers squinted. “Rabbits? Surely this refers to babies that are born prematurely: unusually frail, perhaps, or particularly endearing—”

  “Rabbits in the most literal sense, I am afraid,” said John. “Torn apart during the birthing, beheaded or stripped of their pelts, but rabbits all the same, and recognizable as such. Three each week on average. Arriving between nine and noon, regular as clockwork.”

  “That,” said Ahlers, frowning, “is…most interesting.”

  “I have been tending to this woman since the middle of October,” said John, “and despite our strenuous efforts her condition remains unchanged; nor has the phenomenon shown any signs of ceasing. We are both gravely concerned, Nathanael and I, and I find it reassuring that the king has chosen to send a second—”

  Ahlers put up a hand. “Second? I am the second surgeon sent here by the king, you say? Who, may I ask, was the first?”

  “Why, Nathanael St. André, of course. His assistance in this case has been of inestimable value thus far.”

  “Interesting. I have had…business…with Mr. St. André before,” said Ahlers. “London is a small town in some ways—those who share rarefied circles within a profession often cross each other’s paths. Whether St. André genuinely belongs in the circles in which he has irreversibly entrenched himself is, among his colleagues, a frequent subject of debate—”

  The rap of the knocker cut Ahlers off mid-sentence, followed soon after by the door flinging open as if the visitor felt there was no need to wait to be welcomed. It was Nathanael St. André himself, along with Laurence. “A most unpleasant experience as I approached your door,” Nathanael said to John as he entered the room. “In the company of a tubby little dandy was a woman whose face was spoiled by a birthmark—it covered half the poor creature’s face. She might have been quite lovely otherwise. The look she gave me as she passed had clear intent to hex—”

  He stopped, startled. “Cyriacus?”

  Ahlers, beaming, extended his hand once again. “So great to see that you enjoy good health.” He gave Nathanael’s hand the same three quick vigorous pumps he’d portioned out to John, though Zachary got the impression that Ahlers’s handshake in this instance caused St. André some slight pain. “The king, to whom I spoke in person just yesterday, sends his regards, and offers his hope that the mysterious case of this Godalming patient has not proved too thorny for a surgeon such as yourself to manage.”

  “I am certain, knowing my reputation as you do, that you assured him there is no cause for concern,” said Nathanael. “Indeed, when I spoke to the king in person myself before I set out, he idly mentioned his intent to dispatch another person in my wake sometime later, to offer me some small assistance that he judged might be necessary. I assured him that such precautions were unneeded, but he is ever headstrong, and chooses to plan for even the most unlikely of contingencies. So here you stand, and we must make use of you—perhaps you might even be able to make one or two worthy observations as this case reaches its speedy and salutary conclusion.”

  “Oh, there will be many an observation,” said Ahlers, “of that you can be sure.”

  Meanwhile, Laurence had edged around the room until he was close enough to Zachary to talk in a whisper. “I sense trouble,” he said as Ahlers and St. André spoke, the volumes of the two men’s voices rising.

  “I do not mean to cast aspersions on your master,” said Zachary quietly, “but I feel compelled to ask whether he is sometimes given to lying.”

  “Lying outright, no,” said Laurence after some consideration. “Stretching the truth to serve what he sees as a good end: on occasion.”

  “Which of these two is lying now, do you think? About having spoken to the king?”

  Laurence looked back and forth between the two of them, their faces red; both of them had now begun to lay emphasis on their words by tapping the chest of the other with an extended index finger. He shrugged. “Neither? Both?”

  At last, John placed his hands on the men’s shoulders, silencing them. “Gentlemen,” he said, “is there any need at this point for such heated discussion? Should not the health of the patient be our only focus until she is cured? I propose we delay our arguments until the crisis has passed. Yes?” He looked at St. André (who was breathing heavily) and Ahlers (who was biting his lip). “Yes?”

  “Yes,” Nathanael said, after a deep breath.

  “Yes,” Cyriacus said, straightening a stray lock of the hair of his wig. “John, it was a pleasure to meet you. I have a room at the Silver Hart—tomorrow morning I shall return, and I’ll want to examine the specimens you’ve preserved thus far.”

  “Certainly. In addition, we have heard nothing today from Joshua Toft, the patient’s husband—given that Mary tends to birth a rabbit every two or three days, it’s likely that you will have your first chance to witness the phenomenon tomorrow. So prepare yourself.”

  “I shall,” said Ahlers. “In the meantime, I believe I will explore this charming little town, and experience the novelty of air free of the city’s smoke. Good day, all.”

  As Ahlers exited, St. André hissed to Howard in a stage whisper, “And while he takes the air, I would like to offer my studied opinion on another case of yours, John. I believe we must find a means of stemming the infection, before it runs rampant.”

  | CHAPTER XII.

  THE SHEARING EFFECT.

  The group of seven men who journeyed to Mary Toft’s home to attend the delivery of her fourteenth rabbit, on the morning of Wednesday, November 16—Joshua Toft; Cyriacus Ahlers; Crispin Walsh; Nathanael St. André and Laurence; John Howard and Zachary—found themselves constantly jockeying for pride of place at the head of the procession. The apprentices excepted, each of them had their own ideas of the hierarchy of Toft’s various attendants; each of them saw themselves deserving a place at or near the front of the line, and there were too many men for them all to be correct.

  But who could definitively say which of these many men was most important? Joshua Toft was the woman’s husband; John Howard was the surgeon who had the most experience with the case, and therefore the most intimate and intuitive knowledge; Nathanael St. André was the first surgeon from London to discover the case; Cyriacus Ahlers was the newest arrival in Godalming, and held an official title, bestowed on him by the king himself; Crispin Walsh was the only man of God in the group, and thought the Lord had no regard for earthly titles. Zachary and Laurence stood in the shadows of those to whom they were tethered, and thus acquired a portion of the eminence of their masters. None of these men could justifiably be pushed aside or dismissed. And so when Ahlers looked to his left to see St. André fast overtaking him, his strides long and exaggerated, he cut off his conversation with Crispin and Joshua to pick up his pace as well; Laurence trailed behind his own master, stepping once or twice on the heels of others, though this was surely not deliberate; Zachary, seeing this (and though he viewed Laurence in a different and more favorable light than when he’d first arrived in Godalming, he was not at all inclined to cede any authority to him), began to walk more quickly, exerting a small pressure on John from behind to walk faster too. By the time they reached the Toft house the group had assumed a gait that, if not quite a run, could be reasonably described as a vigorous trot.

  They had some difficulty entering, what with the front door not being quite wide enough to fit everyone abreast who wanted to pass through it at once, but after a brief comedy of crushed toes and grumbles, all of them eventually managed to fit themselves into the front room of the house. However, then came the larger
problem of entering the lying-in chamber, which had a bed that took up a great deal of it, not to mention the space occupied by the patient who lay on the bed, which might have otherwise gone to the man most willing to break social convention; in addition, Joshua’s mother, Margaret, occupied her usual station, standing beside the head of the bed, and with her sallow face and grim expression she looked the type to cause a scene if asked to move. Joshua absolutely had to enter the lying-in room: it would be strange for so many men to be in the company of his wife while he waited outside. Crispin had to accompany him, for the miraculous nature of the event required his presence and authority, beyond doubt. Ahlers surely had not come all this way for nothing: he had to observe the delivery at the very least. This left Nathanael and John, and as Nathanael turned to John and gently placed his hand on his arm, as if John were a distant, rarely seen cousin suffering bereavement, John realized that he had lost a game that he had not even realized he was playing.

  “John,” Nathanael said, “just this once, would you be willing to wait outside while this business is completed? It’s far too close in there for all of us. And given certain new arrivals to our party, I am perhaps best suited to observe any unexpected occurrences. Yes?”

  John quickly nodded, loathing himself for feeling warmed by Nathanael’s answering smile. Nathanael turned and entered the lying-in room, Laurence following; at the last moment, Laurence looked back to make eye contact with Zachary, and the two of them shared a simultaneous cringe that Zachary found oddly comforting—if Zachary perceived that this situation was getting out of hand, its path unforeseeable and its conclusion unpredictable, then Laurence realized it too.

  As Laurence wedged himself into the room and Nathanael shut it behind them, John and Zachary glanced at each other, seated themselves in the dim room’s two rickety chairs, settled themselves, and waited.