Poor Things

by Alasdair Gray

  Then Baxter turned to me and said friends of his father had kept him informed of my standing in the Glasgow medical profession. I was a good diagnostic and bacterial pathologist, with wide knowledge of the hygiene which allowed the efficient functioning of the human organism. These were exactly the qualifications needed by a public health officer, and he hoped I would consider that. Prevention of disease was more important than cure. There were no better public benefactors than those who strove to make Glasgow better watered, drained and lit—better housed, in short. But his main reason for wanting me in such a position was personal. When Bella eventually got charge of her own clinic (and he would put his fortune into helping her create one) the support of a highly placed local government official would be very useful to her. This argument convinced me.

  I now raised the question of my marriage, and suggested it be as soon as possible. Bella said she must first make sure she had contracted no venereal infection through her work for Madame Cronquebil. Baxter said six weeks of sexual quarantine should be sufficient, then said he was tired, bade an abrupt good-bye and went upstairs. I realized that the thought of Bella marrying me instead of him still caused him pain. I told her so, and she laughed at the idea. She did not deny it, but thought it a piece of daftness he would easily recover from. This is the only area in which I found my dear Bella unfeeling toward the pain of another. But when we got children of our own I discovered most younger people are happily unfeeling toward parents and guardians they feel confident with.

  So we kissed good night, and went upstairs to the landing from which her bedroom opened, and kissed good night again. She murmured, “You are a lot stronger, Candle. You nearly fainted when we did this in the old days.”

  I said I feared I was less sensitive now—my body had missed her for so long that it did not yet truly believe she was with me. She laughed quietly and said she was less passionate too.

  “I need cuddles more than weddings, nowadays,” she said, “and I haven’t had a decent all-night-long cuddle since Wedder started sleeping upside-down after Alexandria. Let us sleep together tonight, you necessary Candle. With a sheet between us I can feel your arms all round me yet do you no harm. Would you mind cuddling me just like that?”

  I said I would love to do it and that exactly this preliminary marriage rite was very frequent in rural Scotland, where it was called “bundling”.

  So we went to bed and bundled, and have not slept apart since, except when she has to attend London meetings of the Fabian Society.

  21

  An Interruption

  Though an atheist I am no bigot. When we knew Bella was free from disease I arranged a simple presbyterian wedding service, for I thought this a harmless and traditional way to solemnize our vows. The Park church was nearest but I did not want the neighbours’ children scrambling at the door, so chose Lansdowne United Presbyterian, less than ten minutes’ walk away beside Great Western Road.25 English readers may blink when I say the service was to be at 9 a.m. on December the 25th. It was the earliest date possible, and the Scottish Church does not think Christmas day holier than other unless it fills on the Sabbath. As I stepped out arm-in-arm with Bella, Baxter and Mrs. Dinwiddie arm-in-arm at our heels, I felt a kind of glee that on my wedding-day people were having holidays all round the world, though the Glasgow shops and offices and factories were as throng with business as ever.

  It was a frosty morning. Roof tops, gardens and the quieter streets were coated with snow, but we walked with a steady stride for Baxter had paid a gang of little boys to sweep a track clean from our doorstep to the church. The track descended the hillside through the park, but had been well salted so was not slippy. A thin haze of fog, smoky to the nose, did not hide the nearer distances, and I thought I saw figures enter the building ahead of us. This puzzled me. I had assumed Baxter and Mrs. Dinwiddie would be our only witnesses and congregation. Bella had wished to ask Miss MacTavish, Wedderburn, Astley and Madame Cronquebil in order to show them (she said) “that all’s well that ends well”. We had persuaded her that, if they came, these guests would embarrass each other, and had finally invited no one and not advertised the occasion at all. But of course the minister must have called the banns as usual.

  We entered the church punctually at one minute to nine and saw the nave was empty but for a row of five men in the front pews. Bella said, “Who are they?” and I did not know, though I saw that one looked unusually tall, thin and military. This set me trembling. I felt a disaster was about to happen, and that Bella and I had walked arm-in-arm up this aisle into the same disaster many times before. I felt I was in a bad dream from which I must struggle awake. Baxter murmured, “Steady McCandless!” in a voice so quietly commanding that I stared at him. He nodded back and I realized he had foreseen everything which might happen and was ready for it. I gripped Bella’s arm more tightly and went forward with the courage of a Christian who knows God is on his side.

  We passed the strangers and stood with our backs to them, facing the communion-table. The minister came round the foot of the pulpit and, after some words of introduction, formally asked if I was Archibald McCandless, only son of Jessica McCandless, spinster of the parish of Whauphill in Galloway. I said I was. He then asked my fiancée if she was Bella Baxter, daughter of Ignatius MacGregor Baxter, commercial agent in Buenos Aires, and of his wife Seraphina Rhinegold Cumberpatch? Bella said she was. I wondered why Baxter had invented for the mother such a long improbable name and reckoned he had calculated that in a world full of oddities a list of names which did not contain a long improbable one was unlikely. By the time I had worked this out the minister was saying that if anyone present knew why these two should not be joined in holy wedlock, let them speak out. Then a high, clear grating voice behind me said, “This marriage cannot take place!”

  We turned. The words had been spoken by the very tall thin man who stood erect, glaring steadily at us like a neatly carved, life-size wooden puppet. He looked wooden because his thick steel-grey moustache (which covered his mouth) and sharply pointed beard were nearly the same tone as his pinkish-brown skin. A swarthy, thickly built, wild-looking old man was struggling to his feet beside him.

  “Who are you?” demanded the minister, his voice suddenly petty and squeaky.

  “I am General Sir Aubrey de la Pole Blessinton. The woman who claims to be Bella Baxter is me lawful wedded wife, Victoria Blessinton, whose maiden name was Victoria Hattersley. Here is her father, Blaydon Hattersley, managin director of the Union Jack Steam Traction Company of Manchester and Birmingham.”

  “Vicky!” cried the old man, stretching his arms toward Bella while tears spilled down his cheeks. “O my little Vicky! Do you not recognize your old dad?”

  Bella looked at him with great interest, then looked again with equal interest at her first husband. The General stared fixedly back. The manufacturer sobbed. My own feelings were too strange to describe. I knew Bella was unknowingly seeing the father of her brain in the first husband of her body, the grandfather of her brain in the father of her body. At last she said, “Well you seem a fascinating pair, but I cannot remember seeing either of you before.”

  The General said, “Speak, Prickett.”

  A third man stood up and said he was the General’s medical adviser and had treated Lady Blessington for a serious illness for at least eight months before her disappearance. He said that the lady who had answered to the name Bella Baxter had a voice and appearance so similar to those of Lady Blessington that he had no doubt they were identical. At this the minister said the wedding could not take place.

  I do not know what I would have done if Bella had not kept her arm linked with mine and if Baxter had not taken charge. The gravity of his bulk and manner filled me with childish hope as he said, “General Blessington. Mr. Hattersley. Someone told you when and where this marriage was to take place. The same person may have told you I am a rich man and a practising surgeon who has operated on royalty. Miss Baxter came to me three years ago wi
th no memories of her earlier life. She has since lived with me as my ward, and I have made a will leaving her my entire estate. A year ago she freely engaged to marry my friend Dr. McCandless of Glasgow Royal Infirmary. General Blessington! Mr. Hattersley! Do you want the question of Miss Baxter’s identity settled by a judge and jury in a court of law? Or shall we first try to settle it by rational discussion? My home is a short walk from here. I invite you to it.”

  The General said, “Tell him, Harker.”

  A fourth man stood up and said he was General Blessington’s solicitor, and knew that Sir Aubrey wished to avoid damaging his wife’s reputation by a public investigation of private matters. For that reason only the General was prepared to tolerate a private discussion involving the following individuals. On one side himself, his solicitor, his medical adviser, his wife’s father, and Mr. Seymour Grimes of the Seymour Grimes Private Detective Agency. (As the last name was mentioned the fifth man stood up.) The solicitor went on to say that the General would allow, on the other side, Mr. Baxter and his friend Dr. McCandless. However, Sir Aubrey insisted that his wife Victoria Blessington await the issue of the discussion in an adjacent room. He had the best possible reasons for excluding her from it. He also insisted that the discussion be held in a suite of rooms he had engaged at St. Enoch’s Station Hotel. “You want to tell God and Candle who I am without me hearing?” cried Bella. “What do you say to that, God?”

  “I say I will have nothing to do with it,” said Baxter calmly, “unless I am given a good reason.”

  “Tell him, Prickett,” said the General. His medical adviser edged out of the pew then greatly annoyed Bella by leading Baxter aside and whispering in his ear. Baxter’s reply could be heard by everyone: “That is not a reason, it is a lie. I can prove it is a lie. This discussion will not take place unless Miss Baxter is a party to it, and unless it is held in my home. General Blessington and his entourage risk nothing by entering my home; but women have been abducted from British hotels by men who claim to be their husbands, and the police have not intervened.”

  “Rightly!” barked the General. His solicitor looked hard at him. The General looked impassively back and for a while nobody seemed to move. Then some signal must have been given for in a low voice the solicitor told Baxter, “We will go to your home. Three hired cabs are waiting in the lane beside this building.”

  “Three cabs can carry six people,” said Baxter. “Mrs. Dinwiddie, please return with these five gentlemen to 18 Park Circus. Show them into my study, light the fire and offer them refreshment. I and Miss Baxter and Dr. McCandless insist on returning by foot, but will arrive soon after you. Mr. Harker, please explain these arrangements to your employer.”

  Baxter then turned his back on the solicitor and told the minister he would be paid for his inconvenience tomorrow and contacted again when the present misunderstanding had been settled. Then he took Bella’s free hand under his arm and the three of us went back along the aisle to the door. As we went though I felt I had been ten weeks inside that church, though it had been less than ten minutes.

  How fresh, bright and healthy the foggy street and snowy roofs outside looked! Bella felt this too. She said, “I never thought our marriage would be such fun. Is that poor old man really my dad? We must try to cheer him up. Did I really marry that long thin stick with a mask on top? Ee, I am well away from him. Did all these men mean to kidnap me? For a moment they looked as if they would. I am glad you were with us, God. Candle would have died fighting for me but what use is a dead Candle to a kidnapped Bell? One blast of your lungs would have knocked flat the whole clamjamfrie, God, and they knew it. So at last it looks as if the mystery of the Origin of Bell Baxter’s Species is going to be solved. What did that medico whisper to you, God?”

  “A lie. He will probably repeat it aloud and you will hear me contradict him.”

  “Why are you looking so miserable, God? Why are you not as excited as I am?”

  “Because you are going to learn that I too have told lies.”

  “You? A liar?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you have lied to me how can there be any truth? Who can be any good?” said Bella, looking frightened.

  “Truth and goodness do not depend on me, Bell. I am too weak. I am as poor a thing as General Blessington. Prepare to despise both of us.”

  22

  The Truth: My Longest Chapter

  I knew of General Blessington long before Baxter read his name aloud from Wedderburn’s letter. In those days “Thunderbolt” Blessington was as popular with newspaper readers as Sir Garnet Wolseley and “Chinese” Gordon. Viscount Wolseley became commander-in-chief of the British armed forces. General Gordon, by getting the dervishes to dismember him, is venerated as an imperial martyr. My wife’s first husband has been less kindly treated. The Times of London and Manchester Guardian now ascribe his greatest actions to officers who were never named when the actions were first reported. The popular press follows their example. Why has the unhappy end of a brave warrior eclipsed a lifetime of patriotic effort? The best biography of him is still an entry in the 1883 edition of Who’s Who. He is not mentioned in later editions.

  BLESSINGTON, Sir Aubrey la Pole, 13th Bart.; cr. 1623; V.C., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., J.P.; M.P. (L.) Manchester North since 1878; b. Simla, 1827; e.s. of General Q. Blessington, Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Emilia e.d. of Bamforth de la Pole, Bart., Hogsnorton, Loamshire, and Ballyknockmeallup, Co. Cork; S. cousin 1861; m. Victoria Hattersley, d. of B. Hattersley, Manchester locomotive mnfctr. Educ.: Rugby, Heidelberg, Sandhurst. Commanded a native levy on the eastern frontier, Cape of Good Hope, 1849; expedition against the Swazanji, 1850–51 (severely wounded, mentioned in despatches, Brevet of Lieut. Colonel); volunteered for Crimea and served before Sebastopol 1854–56 (twice wounded and mentioned in despatches for repulse of five Russian sorties with very small detachment of the 4th Queen’s Own, Crimean War medal and three clasps, Order of Medjidie and Turkish War Medal); Brigade Major in charge of pursuing column in central India during the Mutiny 1857–58 (wounded, present at taking of the forts of Fumuckenugger, Bullubghur, storming of the Cashmere bastion and heights of Delhi, medal for India, bar for Delhi, Order of the Golden Fleece from Portuguese Crown for defence of Goa); Assistant Adjut. General, British Expeditionary Force to China, 1860 (wounded during the destruction of Yangtse shore batteries but present at the entry into Pekin and storming of the Summer Palace); Governor of Norfolk Island Penal Colony, 1862–64; Governor of Patagonia, 1865–68 (crushed the Tehuelches and Gennaken revolts without losing a man); Governor of Jamaica, 1869–72; Commander of Burmese Punitive Expeditionary Force, 1872–73; Lieut. General throughout suppression of first half-breed revolt N.W. Canada, 1874; Adjut. General, Ashanti War, 1875 (wounded, Victoria Cross); Commander-in-Chief of Militia in Canada, 1876 (injured by exploding bombard in tour of Quebec Province, thanked by Parliament with money grant of £25,000, 5th class Legion of Honour); Cons. candidate Loamshire Downs; Grand Warden of G.L. of Freemasons of England, 1877. Publications: While England Trembled, account of the government’s handling of the 1848 Chartist movement; Purging the Planet, a monodrama; Political Diseases, Imperial Cures, a lecture to the United Service Institute. Recreations: hunting, shooting, breeding thoroughbred stock, chairman of Manchester Humane Society Refuge for Waifs and Strays, personal supervision of experimental farm where slum orphans train for resettlement in the Colonies. Address: 49 Porchester Terrace, London. Clubs: Cavalry, United Service, Pratt’s, British Eugenics.

  The day after Bella returned to us I read the above entry in Baxter’s library, first making sure nobody saw me. Weeks later I learned that Bella and Baxter had separately done the same. We were all too full of plans for Bella’s future to investigate or call up the past together—we hoped it would leave us in peace. Only Baxter had used the information to prepare for the past calling unexpectedly on us. As we hurried home from the church that cold Christmas morning only he was in a serious frame of mind
. I had been infected by Bella’s eager curiosity and a crazy sense of the General’s importance. I had no fears that he would take her from me, but thought my love-life might be entering history as the love-lives of Rizzio and Bothwell had done—not enough for me to end disastrously, just enough to make me famous. Even a remark by Baxter did not cure me of that delusion. As we approached number eighteen we saw the General standing within the study window, glaring down on us. Bella shivered. Baxter said gently, “His left eye is glass—he always stares straight forward to make the right eye match it. No great general has been wounded as often as de la Pole Blessington.”

  “O the poor lad!” said Bella, and waved encouragingly up at him. He gave no sign of seeing this, yet I suddenly feared pity might draw her toward him.

  When we entered the study he continued staring out of the window with his back to the room. The old manufacturer was huddled in an arm-chair by the fire. He glanced at us briefly while Bella and I sat down together at the table, then went on gazing into the flames. The General’s lawyer and doctor sat primly on the sofa beside the detective. Seymour Grimes was the only visitor who looked comfortable: he held a glass of whisky filled from a decanter Mrs. Dinwiddie had left in easy reach. Baxter went straight to a bureau, unlocked it and brought out a sheaf of papers. He laid them on the table and asked no one in particular, “Does the General prefer to stand?”