Not Quite Dead
Page 32
Seated at our linen-covered table in the dining room of the Exchange Hotel, I was once again struck by the family resemblance between Neilson Poe and my old friend Eddie—the sweep of the forehead, the large moist eyes. Then all at once it became clear to me, the intention behind his odd choice in hair color, which was to disguise the resemblance between them as much as humanly possible. If it were not for his dyed hair and his wispy little beard, the similarity between the two relatives would have been remarkable; they might have been twins.
“If what you say is true, Doctor—that Edgar has been sold to the medical school for dissection …” At a loss for words to describe this enormity, Neilson Poe could only sigh, and shake his beard.
“It is a grisly business,” I replied. “And yet, when one considers the content of his work, somewhat ironic as well.”
“You have said it, sir!” Neilson Poe nodded vigorously; again I had managed to establish a rapport, with precious little effort.
Like Eddie, this was a man who longed for approval. But there were dissimilarities between them as well, not of blood but experience. Whereas Eddie’s mouth suggested sensitivity, Neilson’s mouth appeared sharp and defensive. Lines had burrowed into the skin at the corners until they threatened to cut his chin off from the rest of his face. And whereas Eddie had been pristine in his toilet and wardrobe even in impoverished circumstances, his second cousin, the prosperous lawyer, permitted himself dirty fingernails and linen that was less than fresh.
For several moments we contemplated the fate of Eddie’s cadaver, sold to an anatomy class as a subject for dissection. (In actual fact, the indignity was double—the corpse having been bought and sold twice.)
As a man who seeks agreement from those around him, for Neilson Poe any pause without an obvious explanation was cause for concern. Therefore, I maintained silence, while my companion wound himself up like the spring of a watch, until the toe of his highly polished walking shoe began tapping, and he could stand it no longer.
“Dr. Chivers, may I be frank with you about my second cousin Edgar?”
“By all means,” I replied. “It has not escaped my notice that there was some bad feeling between you.”
“The truth is, sir, my second cousin was a monster. As you say, for him to be dealt with in such a monstrous fashion is almost poetic irony. I see it as a positive sign—that there is such a thing as natural justice, don’t you see? That there is a God who cares about what men do.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “You as much as said so in your letter to him.”
My companion nodded, pleased with himself—but then my response caused him to stop and blink several times. Whiskey tends to make men a bit slow.
“ Written him a letter? Dear heaven, why on earth would I do such a thing?” Neilson Poe’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, an expression I would never have seen in credulous Eddie.
“I found the missing teeth a nice touch,” I continued. “It was obvious at a glance that the woman’s teeth were pulled after death—but how long after death was the question. Aware of the practice of selling teeth to denturists, I confronted the mortician with my observation. In exchange for my silence, and a small stipend, he was able to tell me who bought them. You have a striking appearance if I may say so, Mr. Poe. Every bit as memorable as your second cousin.”
Neilson Poe shook his head sadly. “One cannot trust anyone in America these days.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as all that,” I replied. “When a man is bribed once, it is no great surprise that he is willing to be bribed twice.”
“That is true. I had not thought of that.”
Now it was Neilson Poe who took a considerable pause, and myself who broke it.
“Believe me, Mr. Poe, I do not blame you in the least, nor do I hold you responsible for his fate. Eddie was, as you say, a monster. A disease. He infected the world.”
“Infected the world. By God you have a way with words, Doctor!”
“As I see it, sir, your only act was to confront your second cousin with his own infectious morbidity. It was not your fault that the truth drove him mad.”
“Exactly so!” My companion nodded vigorously—but then for a second he stopped, aware of what he had just admitted to. Then came an almost imperceptible shrug as though to say: What difference does it make now?
“Tell me, Doctor, what would you think of a man who stole a loved one from you as a child, then corrupted and destroyed her?”
“I would hate him for it, for certain. I would wish to do him harm.”
Neilson Poe nodded, with the look of a man whose mind is elsewhere.
It has been my experience that the urge to tell one’s story is well nigh universal. Under conditions of relative safety a man will reveal the most ghastly things about himself, almost with pleasure. Neilson Poe was no exception—indeed, his case would present an excellent case study for Scientific American.
“It began when Edgar moved in with Aunt Maria Clemm. At the time he was one more burden in a troubled home. Cousin George— consumptive, coughing, and drinking himself to death. My great-aunt in bed, paralyzed and demented. My great-uncle, dying.
“Then there was little Virginia. Dear little Virginia. I had been her protector, don’t you see, almost from her birth. I shall forever regret that I could not have been with her twenty-four hours a day. I shall always regret that Edgar could.
“My Virginia was seven when he moved in. A rosy little girl in gingham and pigtails. Edgar was twenty. Her big cousin played with her. He helped her with her sums. She called him Buddie—is that not the limit?
“She grew helpless in her affection for him, and remained so to the last day of her little life.
“Dear little Virginia was too young to see what I could see—that which would appear, for profit, in his dreadful stories. All those haunted dreams of incest come to life. His worship of the infantile. His morbid craving for the abnormal and the grotesque. Oh, it was all perfectly apparent, right from the start.
“Just think of it, Doctor: the ward of a rich man, having managed to get himself disowned, sponging off this pathetic group! As an alternative to any concession to duty, don’t you see, it was not for Edgar to show obedience to his stepfather, or secure a paying job. Edgar was too important for any of it.
“I watched it happen, sir. My own father helped him publish his verse in The Yankee. I saw what he was, yet I could do nothing. I saw with my own eyes as he made love to Mary Newman, and I heard him propose to Mary Devereaux—dear God, little Virginia delivered love notes between them!
“Then, most grotesque of all, came the marriage.
“Edgar had recently returned from army duties. His stepfather was recently dead, immune to begging letters forever. Where was Edgar to turn now? Where to sink his proboscis and suck out a living while remaining so haughtily above life itself?
“Heaven knows when Eddie and Aunt Maria dreamed up this dreadful alliance, between a man of twenty-six and a girl barely thirteen—and first cousins, to boot. I suspect it was earlier than any of us can stomach.
“And what of Aunt Maria, her own mother? How could she consent to a match between little Virginia and a man of Eddie’s age and dissipated habits? Would not any alternative be an improvement over life in an incestuous hive? To a husband who would contribute not even his company—unless he were ill, or in the throes of overindulgence?
“Not for Aunt Maria. Where my aunt was concerned, Edgar was the prince of poetry. His sensitivity, his talent, his poetic affectations had blinded her to everything else. The only person in that house who was genuinely in love with anyone was Aunt Maria.
“Edgar had a way with women, don’t you see? He could subject them to his will.
“When it came to begging for money on his behalf, nobody could outdo Aunt Maria. Only editors, it seems, found the strength to resist her pleas—and even they shed tears over it.
“And what are we to think of my little Virginia, sir? Hostage for life, to a parasite who cal
led himself a poet.
“To be sure, sir, at the wedding there was no white dress for little Virginia, no veil, not a penny spent so that she might experience a momentary, fragile glory as a bride.
“And who was to give Virginia away? Why Aunt Maria Clemm, of course—dear, long-suffering Aunt Maria! To this day, when I lay eyes on the woman I want to wring her wretched neck.
“Is my tale grotesque enough for you, sir? Does it not make your skin crawl as though with lice? Well, count on Edgar to exploit it again and again—tale after tale about incestuous brides, women buried alive in tombs, suffering amputation, wasting away …
“Yet who was the sufferer? Who inspired tears of pity? Why, Edgar Poe, of course. No matter what misery he brought down upon others, it was Edgar whose suffering mattered most.” Neilson Poe grimaced at the sour taste of his whiskey.
“I sympathize with you utterly, Mr. Poe,” I said. And yet it was not until the Collected Tales that you came to truly hate him. It was as though he had put between two covers all the cruelty and depravity he had visited upon poor little Virginia, into a single parcel, to be sold, for money.
“Why stop at that? Could he not have made a dollar or two by selling her blood-spattered handkerchiefs, swatches of her shroud, her bones and teeth? …”
Neilson Poe wept. “Stop. I beg you, stop. How did you know this?”
“Because in my own way I shared your sentiments. We have something in common, don’t you see?”
Neilson Poe drained his glass, and wiped his gaunt cheek with his linen napkin. “You have seen through me at any rate, sir. You have cut me to the quick.”
“So did your letter, sir. And the woman in the morgue. And when I saw the teeth I literally fainted dead away.”
“I don’t understand you, sir.”
I took a large drink myself. As I might have mentioned, there are aspects to my tale that will not enhance my reputation.
“As I said, we have something in common, Mr. Poe,” I said. “There were other clippings, you see. Eddie received other letters. I wrote them. I wrote them myself.”
EPILOGUE
* * *
Dr. William Chivers returned to Baltimore. He resigned his position at Washington College Hospital, then moved to Richmond, Virginia, there to establish a modest private practice while writing his memoirs. At that time he became engaged to Mrs. Elmira Shelton. They remained engaged until his death.
Inspector Shadduck became Philadelphia’s first police marshal, following the Act of Consolidation in 1854.
Finn Devlin fled north with Miss Genoux. There he joined the radical group known as the Fenian Brotherhood, whose aim was to take Canada hostage and thereby force England to grant independence to Ireland. In 1866, the Fenians launched a series of raids on Canadian territory. One was at Pigeon Hill, on the Quebec-Vermont border.
The Fenians plundered nearby St. Armand and Slab City, and, it was said, “insulted and abused” the population. On hearing that Canadian reinforcements were approaching, they began a disorganized retreat to the United States. The last two hundred stragglers were charged by a troop of cavalry, who managed to capture sixteen prisoners.
Finn Devlin was one of them. The last public words ever heard from him were, “Men of Ireland, I am ashamed of you.”
Edgar Allan Poe returned to England, where he wrote under a variety of pseudonyms. Miss Genoux returned to France, and was never heard from again.
Table of Contents
Title
Copyright
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
EPILOGUE