by KW Jeter
"Here, Creff," I said. He was clearing the dishes away, maintaining an offended silence as though the untasted food were a comment on his own abilities. I picked the doll up and offered it for his inspection. "Did you ever see the like?"
Creff peered at it suspiciously, then shook his head. "Damned if I have." His taste for novelty had been exhausted by the turmoil of the day before. Perhaps he held me to account for that parade of oddities; the doll was evidently seen as another jape at his expense. "No, sir, I never have." He bore away the dishes in aggrieved dignity.
I had hoped to obtain from him some further idea of the doll's origin. He had far more experience than I with the costermongers that filled the London streets, deriving many of his simple pleasures from their wares. I had often seen him return to the shop poking among the remnants of a pennyworth's whelks wrapped in a twist of paper, or some other ambulatory delicacy. His purchases were not just of eatables: shortly after I first came to London and the shop, he began to sport a chain and timepiece. Unable to purchase one of the expensive articles offered in his employer's shop, he had bought from an itinerant vendor an example of that cheap imported article known to the watchmaking trade as a white jenny, and festooned his stomach with its glittering links. It little mattered to him that its hands soon froze in one position, never to circulate over the face again, as he was in fact ignorant of the art of telling the hour in any manner than the sun's overhead position; he did feel somewhat swindled when the chain's sheen wore off, revealing the base metal beneath.
Regardless, he lacked either the capability or the desire to furnish enlightenment concerning the ugly doll. I laid the thing aside for future pondering, and picked up the coin from the tablecloth.
The sovereign glittered between my thumb and forefinger. As before, a comforting weight and shape to the hand, with the shield on one side, and on the obverse – the profile of, not Queen Victoria, but rather the doll's exophthalmic twin. The craft employed in the coin's depiction was finer, of a quality equal to that ever used to show a monarch of the realm. With what self-assurance as such repulsive features could muster, the figure – I assumed it to be male, from the old-fashioned short periwig shown above the sloping forehead – gazed towards the coin's margin. If the denizens of the sea had wished to acclaim themselves a ruler, the profile might have been that of their most noble candidate.
An inscription ran underneath. I held the coin up to read the words. They identified the personage as one Saint Monkfish.
Such a figure was outside any calendar of saints of which I was aware. Admittedly, my religious education had been sparse: the aunt who had reared me had little interest of her own, other than maintaining the conventions of respectability, and had received no instructions from my father on the point. Indeed, the disastrous affair at Saint Mary Alderhythe had been the only occasion in adulthood of my entry into a church for other than a funeral service. Even now, such accumulated grim experience produced an involuntary shudder in me if I merely passed by any sanctified premises. Thus, so narrow was the compass of my Christian knowledge, I could not be without doubt, as I gazed at the coin in my hand, that there wasn't a Saint Monkfish somewhere in the minor hagiology – perhaps the patron of truly ugly people? A vision came to me of those facial deformities that we pass hurriedly on the street, dropping alms into upturned hands while averting our eyes; perhaps those unfortunates made their devotions at the shrine kept in some church's darkest corner, where they and their intercessor would be hidden from pitying gaze.
My mind was filled with conjecture and query, raised by the two strange objects before me. I resolved upon a course of immediate investigation; there was no work in the shop, other than the mahogany cabinet that the Brown Leather Man had left with me. Even if I had felt my cerebral powers up to the task of examining and repairing the device, my thoughts were too preoccupied with what mysterious connections there might be between the clockwork assemblage, the ugly doll, and the coin with its curious saint. Perhaps the dullness that is engendered by long periods of poverty, and the lack of sociability and amusement that it entrails, had bred in me a thirst for that which we should name Folly, but prefer to call Adventure. Things which a wiser man would dismiss as mere coincidence or oddities too trivial for notice, had claimed my attention. In a small velvet bag, ordinarily used to preserve the polished metal of a watch lying in the counter drawer, I placed my two small curios, and pulled the drawstring tight. I instructed Creff to keep the shop's window shutters down, and to inform any callers that I would resume business on the next day; then I set out to discover what I could do.
The parish church was situated closest to my shop. I made for it as my first point of inquiry, resolving thereby, if not to banish my fear of churches, to at least swallow the bitter pill of a visit to one before anticipation could make it worse.
Begrimed windows cast dim shapes of the coloured glass upon the stone floor as I peered around the arched wooden doors. A few candles guttered and flared in the draughts whispering around the pillars, revealing the huddled shapes of those at prayer or in surreptitious slumber after a cold night shuffling over the pavements that provided them their only home. A thin figure, whom I took to be the verger, left off clearing cobwebs from the corners of one of the larger pews, the point of the willow branch in his gnarled hand swathed in dusty spider silk, and shuffled towards me.
"I wish to see the parson," I informed him. I let the church door creak shut behind me, thus completing the gloom inside its buttressed walls.
"Do ye, then?" His age and labours bent him in such a way that his neck protruded at a right angle from his hollow chest, giving him a tortoise-like appearance reinforced by the snap of his near-toothless jaws. "If ye're another scroof come round with yer bunkum letters of reference, ye kin just bugger off. The parson's been burned fair enough times on that dodge to rickinize one of yer ilk be now." His yellow eye glared at me, as if he were about to snip my arm between his Punch-like nose and chin.
"You mistake me," I protested. "I've no intention of asking for money." Evidently, the clergyman had been the victim of those professional beggars who gain sympathy, and a sizeable gift, through their portrayal of distressed gentility. "Only information – that's all I seek. I have a few questions of a… theological nature."
"Bloody likely," muttered the verger. He did; however, lead me to the rectory attached to the church.
I was soon ushered into the parson's study, the only ornament within its severe confines being the thick volumes of sermons lining the walls. The smell of their aged morocco bindings mingled with the fumes still rising from a blackened clay pipe resting in a bowl on the desk. From behind it the aged clergyman rose, pushing himself upright with a well-worn blackthorn cane, as the verger coughed out some vague introduction before retiring behind the door.
The parson, beneath the grey tangle of his brows, glared at me with little less suspicion, as a mariner might peer through a dense sea fog to discern the friendliness of another ship spotted in pirate-filled waters. "Your name was…?" he growled with no attempt at polite formality.
"Dower, sir." I approached the desk. "George Dower. Of this parish, actually."
He lowered himself back into his chair. "I seem to have some memory of your face," he mused. "But not here in the church." He gestured brusquely at a point near me.
I sat down in the smaller chair he had indicated. "My attendance at services has been… irregular. Perhaps, on the street – my shop is nearby." In truth, his lined, scowling visage bore some reminder for me as well – but from where and what time I could not then recall.
His disordered white mane brushed his collar as he shook his head. "I do not go out from here." He raised his cane for explanation. "My mobility has been impaired for some time." His blunt hands folded across the papers on the desk as he leaned forward. "Your business, sir – I have pastoral matters to attend to."
"I only require a moment of your time," I said. "I'm attempting to find out whatever I can a
bout a certain saint. Rather an obscure one, I feel. And I'd be grateful for whatever help you could give me."
"A saint, you say?" He nodded, frowning reflectively. "Well, that is a praiseworthy endeavour – the lives of the blessed should be an inspiration to us. Very commendable, I'm sure. What period?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"When," said the clergyman patiently, "did this saint of yours live?"
"I have absolutely no idea."
"Hm." He studied me, my commendable nature apparently lowered in his eyes. "Very well – this saint's name, then."
I gathered my breath before speaking: "Saint Monkfish, actually. "
"Indeed." One shaggy eyebrow arched as he pinched his lower lip between thumb and forefinger; my query had apparently plunged him deep into thought. "Saint Monkfish, you say."
"Yes," I replied eagerly. "You know of him?"
He mused in silence, rubbing his lip.
"You see, I came across the name in rather a peculiar way." I brought out the velvet bag and undid its drawstring. "I was given this coin–"
Before I could fetch it out, the parson's voice sounded in a deep rumble. "Saint Monkfish, is it? A moment… now I think I remember you–"
I looked up and saw the penetrating stare from under his lowered brows. In the same moment, we recognised each other.
"Insolent whelp!" His cane landed across his desk with a mighty crack, scattering the papers like frightened birds. "Blaspheming wretch!"
I pushed myself backwards in the chair, away from the trembling point of the cane. The clergyman's sudden wrath made the identification complete in my mind. He had been one of the dignitaries invited to the inaugural service of my father's Clerical Automata at the church of Saint Mary Alderhythe. Indeed, my panic-unleashed memory informed me that his incapacity was a direct result of injuries suffered on that lamentable occasion.
"And now–" His eyes darted fire, his jaws working convulsively, "And now – not content with your unholy machinery's defilement – you come round here with crude japeries at the Church! Apostate!" The cane slashed through the air, whistling past my face. "Mocking – mocking, I say – the sacred traditions of all held holy by right-thinking men. Saint Monkfish, indeed. Very clever, that! You… you Manichean!"
The cane swung again towards me. Rising up to full height, the old clergyman seemed on the verge of lunging across the desk and driving the point through my chest, skewering me to the worn leather at my back. I scrambled to my feet, edging away with the velvet bag clutched to my chest.
"I – I meant no offence," I stammered. "Truly–"
He hobbled around the desk, waving the cane. "Monkfish!" he shouted, his lips flecked with spittle. "I'll give you monkfish, wretch!"
A stinging blow landed across my shoulders as I tugged at the latch of the door. It came open, spilling me out into the church aisle. A few rheumy-eyed faces looked up from their prayers or slumber as the sound of blackthorn against woollen serge echoed from the stone walls. The old parson was still shouting anathemas after me as I fled between the pews.
In the street, some distance from the church, I slowed my paces. The intervening throng screened me from any further pursuit by the gimp-legged clergyman. Safe once more, I assessed my injuries, working my smarting shoulder blades inside my coat as I walked. Perhaps a few bruises, and I was fortunate at that: if the old man's strength had been equal to his anger, I would fair have been beaten into the flagstones. A foul stroke of luck, to wander all innocent into the den of one bearing such a grievance – both personal and theological – against me. I had, at least, achieved some small addition to my knowledge. If ever a Saint Monkfish had lived, his canonization had been achieved outside any Church I might know.
I briefly contemplated abandoning any further inquiries. What I had learned so far had been sorely bought. The clockwork device that the Brown Leather Man had left me still awaited my attentions; was I not shirking those duties I owed the gentleman by this chasing after small mysteries? An ugly doll and an odd coin – what were these but mere coincidences, of no import to any except one looking for diversion? Better to tend my shop; Brown Leather had stated his intent to return in a week's time; perhaps all questions could be answered then.
Wise counsel, even if I gave it only to myself. Yet I put it out of mind, and went on with my Londonbounded voyage of discovery. The sense of dream-like connections persisted, of sea water and clockwork somehow coexistent; as a dreamer dances rashly along cliff edges that would paralyse him with fright when awake, so I proceeded.
The coin with Saint Monkfish's portrait on it had caused me enough grief for the time being. I turned my steps towards the Tottenham Court Road, that costermongers' thoroughfare, where all things were bought and sold.
I soon spied such a person as I wanted. In the midst of the noise and bustle, the jostling pedestrians and carriages, the walking merchants who peddle their wares from pushcarts and neck-slung trays shouted their inducements to potential customers. I pushed my way past the common lot of patterers, gallows littérateurs, cheap johns, and the like; near the turn on to the Hampstead Road, a hawker with a basket of dolls on his crooked arm was holding aloft a pair of the mannikins for the passing crowd's inspection.
"Yes, sir: finest wares," said the man, spotting my interest as I approached. "Make a child happy for fourpence – there's not many things in this world as can do that. Have you a small one to home?"
"Actually, no," I said. "I really only require information from you."
"Mayhap you do." He poked about in his basket, arranging the dolls to better effect. "But I doubts as you could tell me how much trade I'd lose thereby, there being many fine folk who'd swallow their disappointment over not obtaining one of these rare toys, rather than interrupt such a discussion."
I fetched out a shilling and handed it to him.
The coin disappeared into his pocket. "Very fine, sir; very fine. For that you'll know all that Dick the Dollman knows, though it take hours in telling. Man and boy. I've peddled the London streets, though I was raised to a better class of trade and am only reduced to this through harsh circumstance. My father was a pensioner in Greenwich College–"
I interrupted a monologue that seemed, through frequent repetition, to have taken on the mechanical aspects of one of my father's clockwork figures. "Pardon; I only need to know the origin of the dolls you sell. Who makes them, and from where they come."
"Why, I makes them myself, sir. Very clever I am at it, too. I've made wax heads – large size, that is, big as yours or mine; I don't make these little ones – of murderers who were hung, for exhibit by a company of showmen; I did the infamous Rush, and Mr and Mrs Manning, and very convincing they were. In all aspects of dolls and wax figures and the like, I'm your man."
"You don't make the heads for these dolls?" I seized upon this one helpful fact.
"Oh, no, sir. It's cheaper to buy them, and assemble them on to the wax bodies as I make. There's no profit in fiddling with these tiny heads, as I can buy 'em seven-and-a-half-pence for a dozen, easy enough."
"Where do you buy them? Who makes them?" persisted.
"Why, they're near all made in Hamburg, but we buy them here in London. Alfred Davis', in Houndsditch – they're of a very nice quality, very fine; I prefers them to those of White's, though they be right close by. Or Joseph's – they're in Leadenhall Street; not nearly so fine, they are."
I leaned closer to the doll seller, to better separate his words from the surrounding street noise. "I take it, then, that if shown a particular doll's head, you could identify the premises of its origin?"
He preened himself a bit, smoothing his shirt-front with one hand. "As I said, in all things pertaining to dolls, Dick's your man."
From the velvet bag I drew forth the ugly doll given me by my last night's host. "If you'd be so kind, then," I said, holding it forth. "Which of the shops you mentioned sold this?"
I saw his eyes widen, startled, as he gazed at the thing; an ashen
pallor drained into his face. Then he recovered a measure of his composure, and looked up at me.
"Never seen the like," said the doll-seller, shaking his head. His voice held only a fraction of its former bravado. "Never in my days. Right 'bominable-looking, it is." He tucked his own wares back into his basket, and moved away from me.
I clutched his coat sleeve to restrain him, "You say you have never seen one like this before?" An evident falsehood; the look in his eyes had been one of fearful recognition.
He jerked his arm out of my grasp. "No, never," he said grimly. "It's not a fit plaything for a child – best throw it away, sir, or on the fire." He began a quick walk, pushing into the shifting wall of the massed crowd.
"But surely–" I called after him.
A stern glance came over his hunched shoulder. "You've had a shilling's worth of information, sir. Believe me – you don't want to know any more." Then he was gone from my sight.
I stared after the vanished figure, long after the intervening crowd had swallowed him up. Thus far, my inquiries had yielded only meagre fruit: blows in one case, and a hasty evasion in another. I knew little more than when I had started. Indeed; the mysteries had been compounded by the fright that had been visible in the doll seller's face. Was this Saint Monkfish a figure of sinister import unknown to me? I had only one other possible informant in mind, and thus turned my steps in that direction.
