Arthur & George Read online

  “Do not read Leigh Hunt’s book.”

  This was more than uncanny. For some days, Arthur had been privately wondering whether or not to read Hunt’s Comic Dramatists of the Restoration. He had not discussed the matter with anyone; and it was hardly a dilemma with which he would bother Touie. But then to be given such a precise answer to his unvoiced question . . . It could not be a magician’s trick; it could only have happened through the ability of one man’s mind to gain access in a so far inexplicable way to another man’s mind.

  Arthur was so persuaded by the experience that he wrote it up for Light. Here was further proof that telepathy worked; for the moment, nothing more. This much so far he had seen: what was the minimum, not the maximum, that could be deduced? Though if reliable data continued to accrue, then more than the minimum might have to be considered. What if all his previous certainties became less certain? And what, for that matter, might the maximum turn out to be?

  Touie regarded her husband’s involvement in telepathy and the spirit world with the same sympathetic and watchful interest that she brought to his enthusiasm for sport. The laws of psychical phenomena seemed to her as arcane as the laws of cricket; but she sensed that with each a certain result was desirable, and amiably presumed that Arthur would inform her when such a result had been obtained. Besides, she was now much absorbed in their daughter, Mary Louise, whose existence had come about through the application of the least arcane and least telepathic laws known to mankind.

  George

  George’s “apology” in the newspaper affords the Vicar a new line of inquiry. He calls on William Brookes, the village ironmonger, father of Frederick Brookes, George’s supposed co-signatory. The ironmonger, a small, rotund man in a green apron, takes Shapurji into a storeroom hung with mops and pails and zinc baths. He removes his apron, pulls out a drawer and hands over the half dozen letters of denunciation his family has received. They are written on the familiar lined paper torn from a notebook; although the penmanship varies more.

  The top letter is in a childish, unconfident scrawl. “Unless you run away from the black I’ll murder you and mrs brookes I know your names and I’ll tell you wrote.” Others are in a hand which, even if disguised, seems more forceful. “Your kid and Wynn’s kid have been spitting in an old woman’s face at Walsall station.” The writer demands that money be sent to Walsall Post Office in recompense. A subsequent letter, pinned to this one, threatens prosecution if the demand is not met.

  “I assume you sent no money.”

  “Course not.”

  “But you showed the letters to the police?”

  “Police? Not worth their time or mine. It’s just kids, isn’t it? And as it says in the Bible, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will ne’er harm me.”

  The Vicar does not correct Mr. Brookes’s source. He also senses something idle about the man’s attitude. “But you didn’t merely put the letters in a drawer?”

  “I asked around a bit. I asked Fred what he knew.”

  “Who is this Mr. Wynn?”

  Wynn is apparently a draper who lives up the line at Bloxwich. He has a son who goes to school at Walsall with Brookes’s boy. They meet on the train each morning and usually return together. A while ago—the ironmonger does not specify how long—Wynn’s son and young Fred were accused of breaking a carriage window. Both swore it was the work of a boy called Speck, and eventually the railway officials decided not to press charges. This happened a few weeks before the first letter arrived. Perhaps there was some connection. Perhaps not.

  The Vicar now understands Brookes’s lack of zeal in the matter. No, the ironmonger does not know who Speck is. No, Mr. Wynn hasn’t received any letters himself. No, Wynn’s boy and Brookes’s boy are not friends with George. This last is hardly a surprise.

  Shapurji describes the exchange to George before supper, and pronounces himself encouraged.

  “Why are you encouraged, Father?”

  “The more people involved, the more likely the scoundrel is to be discovered. The more people he persecutes, the more probable it is he will make a mistake. Do you know of this boy called Speck?”

  “Speck? No.” George shakes his head.

  “And I am also encouraged in one respect by the persecution of the Brookes family. This proves it is not merely race prejudice.”

  “Is that a good thing, Father? To be hated for more than one reason?”

  Shapurji smiles to himself. These flashes of intelligence, coming from a docile boy who is often too much turned in on himself, always delight him.

  “I will say it again, you will make a fine solicitor, George.” But even as he pronounces the words, he is reminded of a line from one of the letters he has not shown his son. “Before the end of the year your kid will be either in the graveyard or disgraced for life.”

  “George,” he says. “There is a date I wish you to remember. The 6th of July 1892. Just two years ago. On that day Mr. Dadabhoy Naoroji was elected to Parliament for the Finsbury Central district of London.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Mr. Naoroji was for many years Professor of Gujerati at University College London. I was briefly in correspondence with him, and am proud to say that he had words of praise for my Grammar of the Gujerati Language.”

  “Yes, Father.” George has seen the Professor’s letter brought out on more than one occasion.

  “His election was an honourable conclusion to a most dishonourable time. The Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, said that black men should not and would not be elected to Parliament. He was rebuked for it by the Queen herself. And then the voters of Finsbury Central, only four years later, decided that they agreed with Queen Victoria and not with Lord Salisbury.”

  “But I am not a Parsee, Father.” In George’s head the words come back: the centre of England, the beating heart of the British Empire, the flowing bloodline that is the Church of England. He is English, he is a student of the laws of England, and one day, God willing, he will marry according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England. This is what his parents have taught him from the beginning.

  “George, this is true enough. You are an Englishman. But others may not always entirely agree. And where we are living—”

  “The centre of England,” George responds, as if in bedroom catechism.

  “The centre of England, yes, where we find ourselves, and where I have ministered for nearly twenty years, the centre of England—despite all God’s creatures being equally blessed—is still a little primitive, George. And you will furthermore find primitive people where you least expect them. They exist in ranks of society where better might be anticipated. But if Mr. Naoroji can become a university professor and a Member of Parliament, then you, George, can and will become a solicitor and a respected member of society. And if unfair things happen, if even wicked things happen, then you should remember the date of the 6th of July 1892.”

  George thinks about this for a while, and then repeats, quietly yet firmly, “But I am not a Parsee, Father. That is what you and Mother have taught me.”

  “Remember the date, George, remember the date.”

  Arthur

  Arthur began to write more professionally. As he put on literary muscle, his stories grew into novels, the best of them naturally being set in the heroic fourteenth century. Each page of work would be read aloud to Touie after supper, and the completed text sent to the Mam for editorial comment. Arthur also took on a secretary and amanuensis: Alfred Wood, a master from Portsmouth School, a discreet efficient fellow with the honest look of a pharmacist; an all-round sportsman too, with a very decent cricket arm on him.

  But medicine remained Arthur’s current livelihood. And if he was to advance in his profession, he knew it had become time to specialize. He had always prided himself, through every aspect of his life, in looking carefully; so it did not require a spirit voice, or a table leaping into the air, to spell out his chosen calling—ophthalmologist. He was not a man
to prevaricate or palter, and knew at once where best it was to train.

  “Vienna?” repeated Touie wonderingly, for she had never left England. It was now November; winter was coming on; little Mary was beginning to walk, as long as you held her sash. “When do we leave?”

  “Immediately,” replied Arthur.

  And Touie—bless her—merely rose from her needlework and murmured, “Then I must be quick.”

  They sold up, left Mary with Mrs. Hawkins, and took off to Vienna for six months. Arthur signed up for a course of eye lectures at the Krankenhaus; but quickly discovered that the German learned while walking along flanked by two Austrian schoolboys whose phraseology was often less than choice did not fully prepare a fellow for rapid instruction littered with technical terms. Still, the Austrian winter provided fine skating, and the city excellent cakes; Arthur even knocked off a short novel, The Doings of Raffles Haw, which paid all their Viennese expenses. After a couple of months, however, he admitted that he would have been better off studying in London. Touie responded to the change of plan with her usual equanimity and despatch. They returned via Paris, where Arthur managed to put in a few days’ study with Landolt.

  Thus able to claim he had been trained in two countries, he took rooms in Devonshire Place, was elected a member of the Ophthalmological Society, and waited for patients. He also hoped for work passed on by the big men in the profession, who were often too busy to calculate refractions for themselves. Some regarded it as mere donkey-labour; but Arthur considered himself competent in this field, and counted on overflow work drifting his way.

  Devonshire Place consisted of a waiting room and a consulting room. Yet after a few weeks he began to joke that both were waiting rooms, and that he, Arthur, was the one doing the waiting. Idleness being repugnant, he sat at his desk and wrote. He was now well-apprenticed in the literary game, and turned his mind to one of its current bedevilments: magazine fiction. Arthur loved a problem, and the problem went like this. Magazines published two kinds of stories: either lengthy serializations which ensnared the reader week by week and month by month; or single, free-standing tales. The trouble with the tales was that they often didn’t give you enough to bite on. The trouble with the serializations was that if you happened to miss a single issue, you lost the plot. Applying his practical brain to the problem, Arthur envisaged combining the virtues of the two forms: a series of stories, each complete in itself, yet filled with running characters to reignite the reader’s sympathy or disapproval.

  He needed therefore the kind of protagonist who could be relied upon to have regular and diverse adventures. Clearly, most professions need not apply. As he turned the matter over in Devonshire Place, he began to wonder if he hadn’t already invented the appropriate candidate. A couple of his less successful novels had featured a consulting detective closely modelled on Joseph Bell of the Edinburgh Infirmary: intense observation followed by rigorous deduction was the key to criminal as well as to medical diagnosis. Arthur had initially called his detective Sheridan Hope. But the name felt unsatisfactory, and in the writing Sheridan Hope had changed first into Sherringford Holmes and then—inevitably as it seemed thereafter—into Sherlock Holmes.

  George

  The letters and hoaxes continue; Shapurji’s plea to the malefactor to examine his conscience seems to have acted as further provocation. Newspapers announce that the Vicarage is now a boarding house offering rock-bottom terms; that it has become a slaughterhouse; that it will despatch free samples of ladies’ corsetry on request. George has apparently set up as an oculist; he also offers free legal advice and is qualified to arrange tickets and accommodation for travellers to India and the Far East. Enough coal is delivered to stoke a battleship; encyclopaedias arrive, along with live geese.

  It is impossible to continue for ever in the same state of nerves; and after a while the household almost turns its persecution into a routine. The Vicarage grounds are patrolled at first light; goods are refused at the gate or returned; explanations are given to disappointed customers for esoteric services. Charlotte even becomes adept at appeasing clergymen summoned from distant counties by urgent pleas for assistance.

  George has left Mason College and is now articled to a firm of Birmingham solicitors. Each morning, as he takes the train, he feels guilty for abandoning his family; yet the evenings bring no relief, merely another form of anxiety. His father has also chosen to respond to the crisis in what seems to George a peculiar fashion: by giving him short lectures on how the Parsees have always been much favoured by the British. George thus learns that the very first Indian traveller to Britain was a Parsee; that the first Indian to study Christian theology at a British university was a Parsee; so was the first Indian student at Oxford, and later the first woman student; so was the first Indian man presented at Court, and, later, the first Indian woman. The first Indian to enter the Indian Civil Service was a Parsee. Shapurji tells George about surgeons and lawyers trained in Britain; about Parsee charity during the Irish famine and later towards suffering millworkers in Lancashire. He even tells George about the first Indian cricket team to tour England—Parsees every one of them. But George is quite without interest in cricket, and finds his father’s stratagem more desperate than helpful. When the family is required to toast the election of a second Parsee Member of Parliament, Muncherji Bhownagree in the constituency of North-East Bethnal Green, George finds a shameful sarcasm rising within him. Why not write to the new MP and suggest he help prevent the arrival of coal, encyclopaedias and live geese?

  Shapurji is more concerned about the letters than the deliveries. Increasingly, they seem to be the work of a religious maniac. They are signed by God, Beelzebub, the Devil; the writer claims to be eternally lost in Hell, or earnestly desiring that destination. When this mania begins to show violent intent, the Vicar fears for his family. “I swear by God that I will murder George Edalji soon.” “May the Lord strike me dead if mayhem and bloodshed do not ensue.” “I will descend into Hell showering curses upon you all and will meet you there in God’s time.” “You are nearing the end of your time on this Earth and I am God’s chosen instrument for the task.”

  After more than two years of persecution, Shapurji decides to approach the Chief Constable again. He writes an account of events, encloses samples of the correspondence, points out respectfully that a clear intention to murder is now being expressed, and asks for the police to protect an innocent family thus threatened. Captain Anson’s reply ignores the request. Instead he writes:

  I do not say that I know the name of the offender, though I have my particular suspicions. I prefer to keep these suspicions to myself until I am able to prove them, and I trust to be able to obtain a dose of penal servitude for the offender; as although great care has apparently been exercised to avoid, as far as possible, anything which would constitute any serious offence in law, the person who writes the letters has overreached himself in two or three instances, in such manner as to render him liable to the most serious punishment. I have no doubt that the offender will be detected.

  Shapurji hands his son the letter and asks his opinion. “On the one hand,” says George, “the Chief Constable maintains that the hoaxer is skilfully using his knowledge of the law to avoid committing any actual offence. On the other hand, he seems to think that clear offences liable to result in penal servitude have already been committed. In which case the hoaxer is not such a clever fellow after all.” He pauses and looks at his father. “He means me, of course. He believes I took the key and he now believes that I wrote the letters. He knows I am studying law—the reference is clear. I think, to be honest, Father, the Chief Constable might be more of a threat to me than the hoaxer.”

  Shapurji is not so sure. One threatens penal servitude and the other threatens death. He finds it hard to keep bitterness against the Chief Constable out of his thoughts. He still has not shown George the vilest of the letters. Could Anson really believe that George wrote them? If so, he would like to be told in
what way it is an offence to write an anonymous letter to yourself threatening to murder yourself. He worries night and day about his first-born son. He sleeps badly, and often finds himself out of bed, urgently and unnecessarily checking that the door is locked.

  In December of 1895 an advertisement appears in a Blackpool newspaper offering the entire contents of the Vicarage for sale by public auction. There will be no reserve price on any item as the Vicar and his wife are eager to dispose of everything prior to their imminent departure for Bombay.

  Blackpool is at least a hundred miles as the crow flies. Shapurji has a vision of the persecution spreading throughout the whole country. Blackpool might be only the beginning: next it will be Edinburgh, Newcastle, London. Followed by Paris, Moscow, Timbuctoo—why not?

  And then, as suddenly as it began, it stops. No more letters, no unwanted goods, no hoax advertisements, no intemperate brothers in Christ on the doorstep. For a day, then a week, then a month, then two months. It stops. It has stopped.

  TWO

  Beginning with

  an Ending

  George

  The month the persecutions stop marks the twentieth anniversary of Shapurji Edalji’s appointment to Great Wyrley; it is followed by the twentieth—no, the twenty-first—Christmas celebrated at the Vicarage. Maud receives a tapestry bookmark, Horace his own copy of Father’s Lectures on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, George a sepia print of Mr. Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World with the suggestion that he might hang it on the wall of his office. George thanks his parents, but can well imagine what the senior partners would think: that an articled clerk of only two years’ standing, who is trusted to do little more than write out documents in fair copy, is hardly entitled to make decisions about furnishing; further, that clients come to a solicitor for a specific kind of guidance, and might well find Mr. Hunt’s advertisement for a different kind distracting.