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I can hear them whispering.
I cannot see them, not yet. And when the curtain is pulled back, what will I see? Faces, pale and almost indistinguishable in the gaslight. My shows are only at night, for that, he tells me, makes them more impressive.
But I know my audience. Clerks heading home from their offices, tired after a day of crouching over a ledger, wanting to see a miracle. Serious young ladies who would never condescend to the spectacles of Battersea Park, but this is different—a scientific lecture. A tutor shushing his charges, boys who will one day go to university—until they see me, and then they shush of their own accord. They recognize me from their lessons in the classics and wonder, how is it possible? Gentlemen in top hats, headed afterward to more risqué entertainments. An old woman in black who peers at me through her pince-nez, disbelieving. She must have seen an advertisement and become curious—is it real? Or a hoax, like the Genuine Mermaid?
I am improbable, am I not?
Almost, but not quite, impossible.
And when the curtain is pulled back and they see me, sitting on my pedestal, arms raised, branches swaying, they will gasp. As they always do.
* * *
Come See the Living Dryad
Proof that the ancient mythologies were veritable truths!
You have read of them in Homer and Hesiod. Now, tonight, you may see for yourself, one of those “dwellers in the lovely groves,” those daughters of Gaia. Living proof that the wonders of the ancient world have not passed away altogether in this age of technological marvels.
Viewing at 8.30, special lecture at 9.00 by Professor L. Merwin, M. Phil., D. Litt., LL.D., Member of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Tickets two shillings, half price for children.
* * *
Who killed Daphne Merwin? By 1888, she was famous enough that the case was mentioned in the London Times:
A tragedy in Marylebone. On the morning of June 7th, Mrs. Lewison Merwin, who has become famous as Daphne, the Living Dryad, showing nightly at the Alhambra, was found brutally murdered at her home in Marylebone. Her husband, Professor Merwin, is distraught and stated that he does not know who could have committed such a crime, as she had not an enemy in the world. According to Inspector Granby of the Metropolitan Police, Mrs. Merwin was stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife. This crime was doubly brutal because, due to her physical peculiarities, Mrs. Merwin was unable to defend herself. Members of the public are urged to bring any pertinent information to the attention of the Metropolitan Police, who promise a swift investigation.
As this edition of the paper was going to press, the man who would be hanged for her murder had already been arrested. Alfred Potts was a pauper and occasional petty thief. That morning, he had come to the Merwin residence. The maid of all work had let him in at Daphne’s insistence. According to her account, he had offered to do whatever work needed doing of a heavy nature, in exchange for a hot meal. Daphne, who was habitually charitable, said he could do some work in the garden. After the maid let him in, she returned to the basement kitchen to prepare lunch for the Merwins. Lewison Merwin, who had a meeting with a business associate, was expected back at noon.
She did not leave the kitchen again until she heard the front door bell. It was Lewison, who had forgotten his latchkey. The maid let him in and returned to the kitchen, expecting to serve lunch. A few minutes later, he ran down the back stairs and told her to come quickly, that Mrs. Merwin had been murdered. When she followed him up to the parlor, she saw Daphne lying on the carpet, with a red stain spreading across her nightgown. Alfred Potts was gone. So was the money for miscellaneous expenses kept in a side table drawer, in the front hall.
It was the nightgown that first struck me about the case, now more than a century old. Why would Daphne Merwin meet a strange man in her nightgown? In 1888, no lady would have done such a thing, and Daphne was trying very hard to be a lady. Potts was arrested in a public house in Spitalfields, where he had been drinking most of the day. The money that had been in the drawer was found in his pocket. He claimed Daphne had given it to him. He knew nothing about any work in the garden, and indeed there was nothing to indicate he had done any. The gardening tools were still in the shed, and there was no evidence they had been used. After she had given him the money, he had left and gone straight to the pub. He had been sitting there drinking at the time the maid claimed he was murdering Mrs. Merwin. The woman who owned the pub confirmed his story, but since she had once been arrested for prostitution, neither the police nor the jury believed her. The pub being otherwise empty at that hour, there were no other witnesses.
The inspector asked why Mrs. Merwin would give him money, without him having done any work. But Potts, who was drunk, merely cursed and tried to assault him. Then he was taken away in a police wagon.
This was all I could learn from the records of the Metropolitan Police, which had been digitized the previous year and placed online. The online archives of the London Times contained an account of the trial, which lasted only three days. During the trial, Potts made an extraordinary claim: that Daphne Merwin was his sister, and that she had given him money several times since he had discovered her address, following her home one night from the Alhambra. But when asked for evidence, he could produce nothing, claiming that any proof of their relationship had been stolen from him long ago. Indeed, the police found few possessions of his in the squalid room he shared with two other men, both dock workers. Lewison Merwin stated that his wife had been an orphan and alone in the world when he met her. He insisted that he had never seen Potts before in his life, and the maid confirmed that she had never seen him at the house before the day of the murder. Surely, if Potts had come to solicit Mrs. Merwin before, the maid would have been the one to let him in.
Needless to say, neither the judge nor jury believed Potts. Not even his own barrister seems to have believed him. He was poor, sleeping on street corners or in that disreputable boarding house, and an alcoholic. The jury reached its verdict in under an hour. He was condemned to death and hanged on September 27th, 1888.
—The British Freak Show at the Fin-de-Siècle, D.M. Levitt, Ph.D.
Every morning, he prunes me. I sit in a chair in the middle of my bedroom and raise my arms. Carefully, he trims away any small branches that are not aesthetically pleasing.
“We don’t want you to look pollarded,” he says.
His goal is always beauty, grace, lightness.
I was neither beautiful nor graceful when he found me. The branches had grown from my hands so I could hardly lift them. They had grown on my feet so I could scarcely walk.
Bark had begun to grow over my face. I was worried that soon it would cover my eyes, and I would be a poor, blind, crippled girl, a pitiable object.
Every day, my brother would place me on my little cart and pull me down to a street corner near Brick Lane Market. There we would beg for pennies. Some passersby would throw pennies on the ground, pitying my grotesqueness. Some would turn away with a shudder. Sometimes the bric-a-brac sellers would give me bits of their lunch. Sometimes we were spit upon, or a group of boys would throw pieces of pavement and rusted nails.
But he found me and saw what I could become. If you come with me, he said that day on the street corner, I will make you beautiful. I will make it so all men look at you and gasp in admiration rather than fear. I will make you a celebrity.
My brother had gone off—young as he was, he had already succumbed to the Demon Drink. I knew he was spending our pennies at a public house while I sat on the cart, waiting and hungry.
Yes, I said. I will go with you.
Look how my branches rise into the air, so gracefully, so lightly. The bark grows up my arms to my elbows. My feet he prunes more thoroughly, so only a few small branches sprout from my toes. I have no need of shoes, for my soles are hard. The bark grows up to my knees.
There is a little bark on my forehead, but it does not encroach on my eyes. My ears are clear. I can see and hear and speak. A human heart beats in my chest. And yet I am like no other woman. That is why he loves me, he says. Because I am unique.
After he prunes me, Lucy removes my nightdress and bathes me, because of course I cannot bathe myself. She dresses me. And then she brings me the child.
* * *
You schoolboys sitting in the front should know, or your schoolmaster should have told you, that the dryads and oreiades were the nymphs of the trees and woodlands. They were associated with particular trees, and when her tree died, the dryad died with it. Woe betide any Greek villager who felled a tree with a dryad, for misfortune would follow him all the days of his life!
The dryads and oreiades sprang from Gaia herself. Who is Gaia, you ask? Surely that learned young woman in the back … yes, exactly. Gaia was the goddess of the earth. And their father was Ouranos, god of the sky. So they were born of heaven and earth. There were many kinds of dryads: the meliai, nymphs of the ash trees; the pteleai, nymphs of the elms; the aigeroi, protectors of poplars. The balanis for holly trees, the sykei for figs, and moreai for mulberry. And then there were the orchard trees: the meliades protected apple trees, and kraneiai could be found beneath the cherry boughs. But the most graceful of all were the daphnaie, the nymphs of the laurel trees, and that is what you see before you tonight.
Where did I find such a marvel? Why, in the hills of Arcadia, of course. I was walking through the verdant groves when I came upon her, sitting by a stream, looking down at her reflection in the water, as laurel trees do. Since I spoke the language of ancient Greece, whose study I recommend to those of you who are diligent and have the time, I convinced her to return with me to the greatest city in the world, to London itself. So you, citizens of the age of steam and iron, could see that the wonders of the ancient world are not wholly gone from the earth—nay, they are only hidden from our eyes. But if we have faith, if we listen with open hearts and see with unclouded vision, we may still witness miracles.
Turn, Daphne, so our audience can see the beauty and delicacy of the daughter of Gaia and Ouranos, nymph of laurel trees—a modern wonder!
* * *
Lewandowsky-Lutz dysplasia is one of the rarest diseases in human history. In the late twentieth century, two cases brought the disease to public attention: those of the Romanian Ion Toader and the Indonesian Dede Koswara. This hereditary genetic disorder makes the sufferers abnormally susceptible to an HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) of the skin. As a result, wherever the skin is cut or abraded, the patient develops macules and papules, particularly on the extremities, such as hands and feet. In extreme cases, these can grow into “limbs” that resemble tree branches and must be removed by surgery. More common are bumps and ridges on the skin that may turn cancerous. Toader was fortunate: he was diagnosed by a prominent dermatologist, who was able to remove most of his growths surgically, and his continuing medical treatment was paid for by the state healthcare system. Since his surgery, the Lewandowsky-Lutz has not progressed, and he has been able to live a normal life.
The second case, that of Dede Koswara, was both more serious and more widely reported. He had a particularly advanced case of the disease, both because he lived far from modern medical facilities and because his immune system lacked an antigen that would have helped him fight the HPV infection. By the time his condition was diagnosed, he was almost completely incapacitated, working in a freak show to support himself, like Daphne Merwin, but without the help of a consummate showman such as Lewison. Once his condition was discovered, he was profiled on various cable television shows, as well as in a Medical Mystery episode titled “Tree Man.” The show paid for surgery to remove most of his growths, but there was no way to stop them recurring, and he recently passed away from what the internet describes only as “complications.” There is still no cure for Lewandowsky-Lutz.
Since the age of twelve, I have developed flat, scaly macules regularly on my hands and feet. Fortunately they have not spread to other parts of my body, and the university provides me with excellent health benefits. I visit a dermatologist monthly to have them removed. Underneath, the skin is lighter, so my hands and feet look mottled. I could cover them with concealer, I suppose. But when I look at them, I remember Daphne. In a small way, they bring me closer to my great-great grandmother.
—The British Freak Show at the Fin-de-Siècle, D.M. Levitt, Ph.D.
I thought Lucy was my friend.
Of course she is my maid, but where else could she find work, with her disfigurement? I knew her when she was begging on the street corners of Spitalfields: a dirty, hairy girl with wild, scared eyes. It was I who insisted that he hire her. And now?
He says she should not have told me, that he is still negotiating a contract. But she is to come before me … before me! And thus, he says, he will show them both our evolutionary and mythological pasts. Both the Primitive Eve and the Living Dryad.
But she is not beautiful. No amount of grooming could make her beautiful. She looks like … yes, a monkey. A sly, low, ill-bred monkey of a girl that I took off the streets, and clothed, and housed. And this is how she treats me.
I heard them last night, long after he thought I was asleep. I did not drink my laudanum, so I lay awake and heard noises, for her bedroom is above mine. First the two of them talking, although I could not make out the words. And then other noises.
Has he not considered me? Has he not considered our child? Our Daisy, asleep in her cradle. How I love her, and yet it is even more difficult for me to hold her than to write.
* * *
Come See the Primitive Eve
The missing link in Mr. Darwin’s theory!
Hitherto, the argument against Mr. Darwin’s theory has been that no creature has been found in a state between man and monkey. The Primitive Eve is that creature—an attractive, well-formed maiden covered entirely with a pelt of dark hair.
Found as a child in the wild forests of Borneo, she has been brought back to England and taught the benefits of civilized society. Hear her read from the Bible. Watch her perform her native dances and then curtsy with the nicety of an English schoolgirl. All should see this living marvel!
Viewing at 8.30, special lecture at 9.00 by Professor L. Merwin, M. Phil., D. Litt., LL.D., Member of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
Tickets two shillings, half price for children.
* * *
My mother first showed me the diary when I began developing Lewandowsky-Lutz. She wanted me to understand where it had come from—why I had bumps on my hands and feet, although evidently it had skipped a generation, because she never developed symptoms. But my grand
mother died young of cancer from Lewandowsky-Lutz. My great-grandmother, Daisy Merwin, lived to a hundred and one, although she had to clip the growths on her forearms at regular intervals. It affects us all differently.
After Daphne’s death, Lewison sent their daughter Daisy to the United States, to be raised by his sister’s family in Virginia. That would free him to travel with his newest marvel, Lucy Barker, advertised as the Primitive Eve. She belonged to the “hairy woman” type of freak show performer, like her contemporaries Krao and Julia Pastrana, both of whom are discussed in Chapter One. Merwin traveled all over Europe with the Primitive Eve, who became particularly popular in France—until she died of a laudanum overdose. Deprived of his major source of income, he returned to New York and worked in the Barnum & Bailey Circus, becoming one of its managers after Barnum’s death in 1891. Although he tried to arrange his own shows on the side, he never again attained the success he had with Daphne or Eve.
After his death, his daughter Daisy received a small inheritance, mostly wiped out by his debts, and a box of her mother’s effects. They included Daphne’s diary, as well as a silver brush and comb set that I still use to subdue my hair and a necklace of coral beads I wear almost every day. In the nineteenth century, coral was believed to protect against diseases—that is why children were given coral necklaces to wear. The necklace didn’t help Daphne; nevertheless, I find it reassuring. It is an attractive placebo.
We must remember that Lewison was a charlatan. Despite his claims, he was not a university professor, nor had he earned any of the degrees or distinctions listed on his advertisements. He had started his career at a theological seminary in Virginia, training to be a minister. One week, P. T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan, and Circus, as it was called in the 1870s, came to town. Lewison bought tickets for every show, and finally asked to meet Barnum himself. That was the beginning of his career as a showman. Barnum hired him as an agent and sent him to London to arrange bookings for his various shows. And that is where he found Daphne, the Living Dryad.
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