by Chris James
After he arrived back at his apothecary’s shop on the Embankment, Betsy greeted him with a big smile, took his hat and cloak and bade him go straight down to the laboratory where the professor had a nice surprise for him.
‘Well, I’ve a surprise for him, Betsy,’ Jacob said. ‘A wagon should call by later with my latest purchase.’ He passed her a parcel, ‘Take these up to the studio, will you? Paints and linseed. I shall need to start painting again before we starve to death.’
The professor had just covered a large pot with a cloth as Jacob entered. ‘Master Jacob, I beg you stand still and observe,’ he said as first he lit a candle, and then went round closing all the curtains to the windows bringing the place almost into darkness. ‘Voilà!’ he announced as he whipped the cover off a large glass urn.
Startled, Jacob cringed, his back to the wall. Inside the urn, her hair floating like kelp on a tide of his golden elixir – Emily’s mutilated head.
Half, to Jacob’s eyes, was near perfect, his wonderful Emily. His inspiration. The skin was blackened – but that didn’t matter to him. The flesh of the other half was eaten away to the bone – inspiration for many a nightmare. He stepped forward and pressed his nose against the glass.
‘Can we do it?’ Jacob, breathed, running his finger down the urn. ‘Can we bring her back to life?’
‘Alas, Master Jacob, this is all I could save.’ The professor placed the candle on the bench and placed over it a metal frame supporting a glass plate, resting horizontally above the flame. From a tap at the bottom of the urn, he dripped just a few drops of the golden fluid onto a spoon then dripped these onto the glass plate over the candle.
As it warmed and swirled, a moving, vibrating, full-colour spectrum shone brightly as it danced about the ceiling – their private aurora borealis.
‘With the souls added, I’m confident we’ll bring all of her back,’ the professor said.
Jacob was mesmerised. He knelt before the urn. Kissed the glass. He touched the tap; a drop wet his finger. He held it to his lips, sucked it dry.
‘It’s good!’ he exclaimed. ‘Not good, it’s incredible! Invigorating! Enlivening!’ He poured himself a small glass and gulped it down. ‘Essence of Emily,’ Jacob breathed, tears welling in his eyes. He placed his head by the candle and plate glass – the aurora swirling on his face, reflecting in his demented eyes, making him look stark raving mad. ‘You’ve brought her spirit back, Professor,’ Jacob breathed passionately, shaking his hand enthusiastically. ‘Preserved her in my otherwise miserable life.’
Over dinner that evening, Jacob explained about the advance of two hundred pounds and that he had already spent it all.
‘The box that arrived this afternoon is for your experiments, Professor. A large copper kettle in which to boil and ferment large quantities of our new elixir.’
‘And the chemicals with which to fill it, master?’
‘Nothing left, sorry. Spent the rest on paints and oils. But now my inspiration has returned, thanks to you, I’ll get painting again. We’ll soon be in funds. You can have everything Betsy makes from the shop, meanwhile. Until you’ve accumulated enough chemicals, I suggest get investigating those souls we need, and more importantly, what we need to do with them.’
‘But I must have chemicals. Large quantities. How can we–’
‘After I sell something. First, I’ll pay back the advance and then we’ll begin in earnest.’ Jacob picked up an empty wine glass. ‘Something to drink, Betsy?’
‘I’m sorry, master,’ Betsy cast her eyes down, ‘there’s nothing left.’
The professor came to his rescue. ‘The elixir, Master Jacob. There was a little left over,’ he said, pouring a small glass of the golden liquid and handing the glass to Jacob.
Jacob was already becoming touchy and irritable, Betsy having been unable to offer his usual medication for some nights now. He sipped the new offering and smacked his lips. ‘Thoroughly recommend it,’ he said, swallowing the rest in a moment.
Both Betsy and the professor cringed.
‘Jean-Louis insists you paint horror, I understand,’ said the professor, winding his beard around his bony fingers.
‘And what does he know about art?’ Jacob snapped.
‘He knows what sells and we do need the–’ the professor tried.
‘I don’t give a damn!’ Jacob interrupted, slamming his knife and fork down so hard on the table that everything bounced. ‘I paint portraits of quality and if he won’t sell them, I’ll find another gallery that will.’
‘But while dear Emily is er. . . resting, master,’ Betsy began, hoping not to irritate him further, ‘might it not be a good idea to try another model just to–’
‘Enough!’ Jacob yelled, pushing his plate away and jumping up from the table. Standing over them, he thumped his fists down hard on the table, startling them both. ‘No other women!’
Jacob retired to his studio after ordering Betsy to take Emily there and sit her urn on the chaise, his preferred pose. He locked himself in with Emily’s remains, and made it clear he did not want to be disturbed, assuring them that when he next came out of that room at the top of the house he would prove how successful he would remain, without the need of any woman other than his dear Emily.
Locked in the studio, determined to conjure up another masterpiece on the otherwise blank canvas, Jacob mixed a palette as he always did, except for that one sorely missed ingredient – his pale green tipple.
Emily sat patiently on the chaise, in her jar; Jacob’s eyes rapidly switching back and forth between her and the canvas.
He wrestled with the blank canvas; yelled at it; commanded it to obey; willed something, anything to appear. But after a long and dreadful night fighting his demons until daybreak, appear it would not. And worse, Emily spoke not a word to him. Her presence gave him little inspiration; without a sign or word of support or encouragement, his depression worsened.
And so it went on. Day in and day out. Night in, night out. Jacob leaving his studio, exhausted, with nothing to show for it. Not a line, a dot or a jot, or the smallest dab of paint. Nothing. Emily had left him. His inspiration had left him. He feared, forever.
A depressed professor sat twiddling his thumbs in the laboratory, confident he was sitting on the solution to mankind’s greatest discovery, but unable to buy the chemicals he needed to top up the pot – for the sake of a few pounds. And then he thought of something. Emily herself could provide the solution.
Over dinner that evening, the professor waited until a suet-pudding desert had been served, and Jacob appeared content.
‘I believe I have a solution,’ the professor offered.
‘Solution?’
‘Something to enable you to paint more.’
‘As long as it doesn’t involve other women, then go ahead,’ Jacob said, causing a long silence.
‘I think we should consult a medium.’
‘A trickster you mean? A charlatan?’
‘They’re not all charlatans, Jacob. The same as not all doctors are quacks. Listen to what I have to say.’
Jacob sat back, swallowing the last of his desert, and taking up a small glass of elixir.
‘Let’s find a medium, a true spiritualist, and ask them to be in touch with Emily – on the other side.’
Jacob leaned forward, intrigued. ‘And…?’
‘You can then ask Emily to return to you, become your inspiration again.’
Jacob appeared surprised. ‘Very interesting idea. She’ll learn how much I need her. To be my muse. We loved each other so dearly, she’s bound to want to help. What d’you think, Betsy?’
Betsy looked at the professor before answering. ‘Well, at least you would know how Emily is getting along, master.’
And so a séance was arranged.
It wasn’t long before Marianne Meridrew, recommended medium to the discerning, had them all holding hands around a table and conjured up taps on the table accompanied by billowing curtains in the fl
ickering gaslight. All present were content that Emily was in their midst.
‘Ask her how she is,’ Jacob asked, holding the medium’s hand on one side and Betsy’s on the other.
‘She’s safe now. Out of pain, she says,’ Marianne said in a ghostly voice. ‘She misses you terribly.’
‘Why did she take her own life?’ Jacob asked, tears welling in his eyes.
‘The loneliness, she says. It was all too much.’ Dead on cue, the medium suddenly switched to a higher-pitched, younger voice, something akin to Emily’s. ‘Always waiting, not knowing if you would come.’
Jacob burst into tears.
The professor jumped to his aid. ‘Ask her how the master might gain the strength to paint again?’
The medium obliged. ‘Paint, Jacob, darling. Paint for all you are worth.’
‘Paint what?’ the professor pressed, tightly squeezing the hand of the medium.
‘Will you come to me, my darling?’ Jacob asked through his tears. ‘Be my inspiration again?’
‘I am weary of inspiration, and not as beautiful now as you deserve,’ the voice told him.
‘So?’ the professor interjected. ‘So what shall he do?’
‘Remember I am with you in spirit, Jacob, and paint the fairest you can find, my darling, the fairest you can find.’ That was when the medium fainted, her head crashing onto the table.
The séance was over and after a stunned Jacob had left them, the professor paid the medium the agreed fee – double her usual because of Emily’s admirable spiritual cooperation.
The following morning, Jacob was back with Jean-Louis at the gallery after receiving a note by messenger. Jean-Louis produced a business card.
‘Gentleman asked me to recommend a portrait painter – the old-fashioned kind, he said.’ He passed Jacob the card. ‘Your chance to repay the advance, quick as you like.’
Jacob read out loud from the card. ‘Sir Robert Weston. Psychologist to the Queen. Dare say he can afford the best portrait painter in London.’ But Jacob had another portrait in mind – the fairest he could find. ‘The girl, Polly, remember her? Brought you my child in the red tunic, from her ladyship, Summer of ’88?’
‘The lady-in-waiting? Yes, I remember.’
‘Can you get a message to her? I’d like to paint her again. It’ll be well paid.’
‘Now that un brings back memories. Get her in a nice erotic pose, with some blood and guts; can make a deal of money out of ’er, ol’ son. Been four years or more since I sees ’er. Now, where was it?’ He scratched his chin. With some toff, doin’ a bit o’ hescorting they tells me. Working the Drury Lane crowd.’
‘Theatregoers you mean?’
‘Not ’er. Theatre owners, more like. Owners, playwrights, managers. Bit o’ class, that un.’
‘Drury Lane, you say?’
‘Try the Old Mo, know it?’
‘Of course,’ Jacob replied, without having the slightest idea who or what Old Mo was, but it was enough to go on.
‘Some foreign geezer made a packet in the city and lost it at backgammon, the story goes. Runs a line of our finest gels now for the hoity-toity. He won’t take kindly to your interfering, mind. Tell yer that for nought.’
‘The Old Mo?’ Jacob asked the ticket tout outside the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. Rain was lashing down. The tout had hoped for a punter, at least.
‘T’other end of the lane, mate. Corner a Parker Street. Sign says Middlesex Music Hall.’
‘Looking for my sister,’ Jacob said, showing him a caricature from his time with Polly. ‘Know her at all?’
‘Geddout! Your sister? Our Poll?’
Smelling a tip in the offing, the tout became very helpful. ‘Be easier to make a date with Nell Gwynn than ’er, mate,’ he said, stepping into the middle of the road and pointing up Drury Lane. ‘Side door, sticking out up there. If it’s our Poll use after, she’ll be wiv ’is lordship ’aving dinner after the show. An’ ’e won’t wanna see ’er messing with no riff-raff.’
‘She’ll mess with me. I’m family.’ Jacob scribbled on the back of the caricature a short message, passed it to him with a half-crown. ‘Make sure she gets this, will you. I’ll come back at midnight and give you another.’
At the stroke of midnight, Jacob peered out from the doorway of a store at Number 173, Drury Lane; J Sainsbury ~ Grocer, the sign said above the door. A shiny, liveried carriage pulled up near the stage door to the music hall. A footman helped down a wheezing, fat, elderly gentleman onto the pavement and closed the carriage door. Polly stuck her head out of the window and blew the old man a kiss through deliciously puckered lips. Just as the carriage was about to pull away, the tout Jacob had seen earlier rushed up to her, waving Jacob’s message and caricature. He watched as her gloved hand took the message.
The carriage moved on, away from Jacob. A cloak of misery covered his face as Jacob paid the tout the other half-crown and watched Polly’s carriage proceed further down the lane in the rain – and then stop abruptly. Polly looked out of the window and waved frantically back to him.
Jacob ran down the middle of the road in the pouring rain, hat in hand, the two of them squealing with laughter as she opened the door and he climbed in.
The professor mounted the newly delivered, five-feet high copper kettle in the corner of the anteroom next to the steps down to the Thames, and looked inside through the glazed porthole in the top. Satisfied it was entirely suitable for their needs, he pulled down the brass lever on the wall. Loud hissing and clunking accompanied the closing wall, protecting their latest adventure from prying eyes, as he attended a glass beaker bubbling in the main laboratory.
Betsy entered with some packages.
‘From the wholesalers. Another four ingredients. Will there be many more?’
‘Only another hundred and twenty or so,’ the professor said, passing her a long list. ‘I’ll need these tomorrow. For a small sample batch.’
‘You ought to catch a glimpse of that new gel, Polly, he’s got up there. Good job the mistress ain’t on her feet.’ She giggled. ‘Seeing as how quick she threw her clothes off for him, Emily would’ve scratched her eyes out.’
‘But he has Emily’s blessing, don’t forget,’ the professor laughed, touching his nose. ‘I’ll pop up and see how they’re getting on later.’
‘I should, if I was you. From what I see of her tits ’n’ arse hanging out, it don’t look much like no horror painting to me.’
Upstairs, Jacob worked rapidly behind the easel, his hand racing across the canvas. On the chaise, the delightful naked body he knew so well from her earlier stay, his very own lady of the night – Polly. Jean-Louis had agreed with him that she was the fairest, probably in all of London, if one ignored her jet black hair.
Displaying the body of a Greek goddess, she had her glorious flouncy pink, polka dot dress draped over her lap while she sucked noisily on a peach.
‘Gonna put me name on it, ducky?’ Polly said, twirling a ringlet of her waist-length hair around her fingers.
Jacob threw his brush down. ‘I said: Don’t move! And close your legs, Polly. It’s not that kind of painting.’ But Jacob was in good humour, his inspiration had returned, with no small thanks to the constantly full glass of elixir by his side. ‘Anyway, who’d be attracted by Polly? And from what you’ve been telling me, girl, half the potential buyers already know you – too well, I fear.’
Polly giggled. ‘Just business, innit.’ Then, extremely well pronounced: ‘Isn’t it, squire. Like what you taught me.’ She giggled.
Jacob laughed while he pondered, his hand flying across the canvas stroking on her beauty. ‘I’ll call you Penelope.’
Polly giggled again, spat the peach stone into the fireplace like any bricklayer would. ‘Penelope. I fink. . . think, sorry, that’s what Ma wanted me called but apparently she couldn’t spell it at the reg’stry office. Nice, though. Pernel-O-Peee,’ she mouthed, opening her legs again. ‘Price of a shag’ll ’ave to go up, name li
ke that.’ She giggled infectiously and Jacob joined her.
‘D’you have to do it?’
She looked at him, puzzled.
‘Sell yourself. I thought you might’ve got yourself away from that way of life, selling the paintings.’
‘I tried, Jake. But, onnis truth, I found settling with any geezer a bit much. My way, I gets enough money for a good time wiv the gels, whenever I needs a break. Don’t ’ave to be there at anyone’s beck and call. An’ I ain’t met a geezer yet who didn’t have no weird demands or who didn’t feel he had every right to knock us about. Know what I mean?’
‘Charming.’
‘ ’Ceptin’ yourself, mon-sure.’
Jacob laughed. ‘I’m nearly done. But tell me, what of dear Nell?’
‘Wiv the gallery money I put her into a boarding school, paid a coupla years and I’ve been sendin’ ’em money to keep her goin’ ever since. ’Igh days ’n’ ’olidays, me and the gels get a charabanc down to Brighton and give her a right ol’ time.’
Jacob finally dipped his brush into a jar of turpentine. ‘Belladonna! It’s done.’
She ran to him behind the easel – and gasped. She started to cry. ‘You . . . You made me so boootiful. Made me immortal, you ’as.’
‘Well, I’m hoping that painting a beauty such as you, Polly,’ Jacob said, placing a wrap around her naked shoulders, ‘will one day make us both immortal.’
Polly slid back into her clothes, the finest silk underwear and the beautiful polka dot dress, fit for a day at the races.
‘How d’you feel about more sessions over the next week or two?’
‘Can’t meself, duck. Got er. . . a client to service. Reg’lar. Can’t let him down. Got some friends, though. They could do with a bob or two. The ones I go to Brighton wiv. Letty an’ Nora. Both pretty, too. Makes me look like a drowned cat, our Letty.’
‘Impossible,’ Jacob laughed. ‘But send them along. I need to make three portraits for a small exhibition.’
Letty’s face did indeed paint a pretty picture, well before Jacob captured it on canvas. High, pronounced cheekbones set off her nose with its tiny upturned end. Her eyes, the colour of steel, pierced anyone so bold as to look into them, causing many a confession from those about to plunder her body, no doubt. Straight, long auburn hair broke at her shoulders.
