WILLIAM DAVEY
I would have preferred to deal with the situations within the Committee other than how I had done. Circumstances, and stubbornness, and a lack of vision on the part of my colleagues forced my hand; like a good parent, I was obliged to enforce my authority in a way that was visible and repeatable.
Still, Elliotson had been right to raise the objection, though we both understood my willingness to flout the regulation. His early experiments, “debunked” by the original, public Committee, had led to the formation of the Committee as it presently existed, and both of us remembered the early days. Challenges—even ones that led to physical harm and death—had been constant and seemed to happen at every meeting. It was not until Edward Quillinan became Chairman that we had any sort of peace.
I succeeded him in 1842, when he chose to retire to take care of his invalid wife. After some initial turbulence, we functioned smoothly under my stewardship.
When we had assumed responsibility for Vernon’s rooms after he was sent to Margate, I directed that they were to be considered neutral ground for the Committee. No mesmeric conflicts were to take place there unless it was a challenge. To use one’s power with the Art at a regular meeting was punishable by a fine—or worse.
My restraint in the interaction with Dr. Forbes was no more than a point of amusement after the fact. Though he stormed off immediately afterward, I never had the slightest concern about having made an example of the old crank. Engledue, however, though he was in the shadows due to his recent “demise,” still had allies and friends in our community: had I been compelled to defeat him in a challenge, I would have more enemies than desirable. Of course, these would not include William Engledue. I would not leave him alive to challenge me again, a fact of which we both had been aware. He wanted to save his skin, and his dignity was less important than that.
The Esdaile affair would be a point of contention among the Committee for a little while to come—not just those who came to Vernon’s rooms in February to see me “defend myself,” but across Britain and beyond. Still, I provided means to protect—or, I might say, shield—Eliza Esdaile from members of the Committee. Esdaile was dead and I was still Chairman. As for the statue—I did not have it, but no one else did either, which was sufficient to conclude the matter.
With a thousand things to attract my attention, time passed quickly; winter turned to spring before Esdaile came to my attention once again—in a way I had not expected.
On a surprisingly warm March afternoon I was poring through the dismal offerings at a bookseller’s not far from Vernon’s rooms on Regent Street, and came across an edition of The Rock-Cut Temples of India. It was an exceptionally well-produced volume, including a series of excellent lithographs illustrating the temples. At a particular page, I happened upon a depiction of a great wall showing a young naked female figure, holding a dagger upraised in her right hand and her left akimbo at her waist. It so precisely matched descriptions and sketches that James Esdaile had sent me that I nearly dropped the book in surprise. I turned to the title page to find the author: James Fergusson.
Suddenly, my interest in Esdaile was rekindled.
I purchased the book and took it with me to a small coffeehouse, where I proceeded to read through it. Fergusson was a bit careless in his grammar and more than a bit plodding in his narrative, but nothing if not thorough. It was clear that he had a love for the subject and was fond of seeing patterns even in areas where there might be none, revealing him as somewhat of an amateur. Fergusson had transformed himself from indigo planter to natural philosopher—he was an amateur archaeologist who had traveled extensively and written exhaustively, and his books had been well received.
Yet no part of the volume struck me as strongly as the picture of that temple. It was in the Indus Valley, and the place—and its appearance—was attributed to an unknown culture unrelated to any in recent or distant history.
I determined that I should visit him and see what I could learn. Upon my inquiry, he granted me an interview, and a few days later I travelled up Tottenham Court Road to meet him. His workplace was in a small building on Bedford Avenue in walking distance of the British Museum, on a storey shared with the offices of a law firm; a stationer’s and a tobacconist graced the ground floor. I was most interested to note the presence of an idler outside the stationer’s who was not what he seemed—he was a chthonic manifestation, and hastily made: it was scarcely an effort to wave it aside as I entered the building; and it did not seem even capable of trying to follow me. It gave me pause, making me wonder if Fergusson himself was a practitioner of the Art—an undiscovered talent?—able to keep such a being outside the doors of his building.
Fergusson’s door was ajar to the hallway, and I found him sitting in a battered armchair with books open on his desk and worktable, and stacks of others on every surface seemingly awaiting his attention. He was peering at a particular volume when I entered, and he removed his spectacles and looked up at me.
“You are Reverend Davey, I presume?”
“I am, sir. Thank you for taking the time to see me.”
“Aye. Well. I wasn’t making much progress with this, anyway.” He rapped his knuckles on the page, which was filled with small type. He gestured to a seat opposite, where a number of dictionaries were stacked. I lifted them, and at a gesture from Fergusson, placed them on the crowded table.
“Now. Sir. How may I be of service to you? I understand that you were interested in the Indian temples.”
“Very much so. But even more I wished to discuss a mutual friend. Dr. James Esdaile.”
As I spoke, I made a small passing motion with my right hand, turning the fingers slightly downward; it was intended to cause him to think on the subject and be immediately forthcoming with his first impression.
For several seconds he did not answer; the sunlight passing through the partially drawn blinds seemed to dim and the fitful breeze died to nothing—but both then returned to their former state. To my surprise, the mesmeric gesture appeared to have had no effect—it was as if he had not felt it at all.
“He died earlier this year. I suppose you are aware of that.”
“A great loss,” I answered, recovering myself as well as I could. “I have visited his widow.”
“He was always one for marriage,” Fergusson answered. “I do not know the lady. I last saw James Esdaile in India, Reverend, after the death of his first wife.”
“You met there, did you not?”
“Yes. We met in Calcutta. 1840 or 1841, I think. We were countrymen, Scotsmen in a foreign land. Both interested in archaeology.” He tapped the book in front of him again.
“I had not known of his interest.”
Fergusson seemed to take a long look at me. If he had been using a mesmeric technique I should have sensed it—but as far as I could tell, he did not.
“Our perceptions were very different. While I am fascinated by the cultures of Asia, I think that Esdaile was appalled by them. He thought little of India’s inhabitants. I do not think he derived much enjoyment from his time there.”
“Yet he wrote about India—and other places in Asia. About his travels. Surely, something must have fascinated him. Like the rock-cut temples.”
“I cannot say. Reverend—Davey, is it? You wished to speak with me on that subject. But I have quite a bit of work to do—”
“Of course,” I answered. “I appreciate that your time is valuable, sir, so I shall come to the point. Dr. Esdaile and I corresponded for several years, and he mentioned specifically that you were in Calcutta together. He also indicated that you had given him a gift.” I reached into my portfolio and drew out the copy of Fergusson’s book, opening it to the marked page. “I believe it was very similar to the statue shown in this lithograph.”
I presented the book to him; he took it and placed it on top of the volume he had been studying. He grasped a large magnifying glass without looking aside and peered through it at the illustration. After some number of mmhms and ahs, he looked up at me.
“A statue, you say.”
“Yes. I recently learned that he obtained it from you, and it was not among his effects. I wondered if you might know its whereabouts.”
Fergusson hesitated, magnifying glass still in his hand, as if he were trying to discern my intention. For my part, I kept my face completely impassive.
Let him think, I told myself, that I am a peculiar collector of unusual things.
“Esdaile and I exchanged several things over the course of a few years, Reverend Davey. We were both always on the lookout for items that might please the other. Was there something special about this one?”
I realized three things almost at once as Fergusson looked at me, the magnifying glass still in his hand, the book open between us. First, he was not a mesmerist: there were no gestures, no patterns, no sense of power that I could feel. Second, he had some sort of resistance to my own powers; it might have been something in the room, or something on his person, or an innate ability.
Third, though I had no basis on which to confirm or deny it—and no power to compel a correct answer—I was certain he was lying, or at the very least prevaricating. He surely knew of this particular item, and might even know its significance.
“If it was merely a trifle,” I said, “I do not know why he might have mentioned it in his letters to me. But what I do not understand is, if it was an important object, why a scholar such as yourself would give it away.”
“This was all a long time ago, Reverend.”
“To be sure. But I can no longer ask Doctor Esdaile about it, sir.”
Fergusson considered that for a moment, then leaned back in his chair, as if he were sizing me up. I wondered at the time if he was trying to decide what story he would give me—but in retrospect, I realize that much of what he told me had actually been the truth. It was just that his tale did not make sense to me at the time.
JAMES FERGUSSON
I arrived in India as quite a young man and spent eight years there in the indigo trade. Unlike many, I was unencumbered by dependents or spouse; I could focus my attention on my business and devote my leisure to the subject of Oriental archaeology, something that fascinated me—and continues to do so, as you can see.
My agenda, my hours, my choice of activities and even the decor in my house were based on my own decisions. As I have realized in later life, this a direct path to bachelorhood. But if that is the price of having no meddlesome relatives, then so be it.
My residence in Calcutta was in the southern part, in Garden Reach. Houses closest to Hastings Bridge and Fort William were not much improvement over the crowded city, but my compound was significantly more pleasant; a better class of person went through the streets in his palky, his sedan chair. I had engaged the usual army of household servants, and had the good fortune to obtain an experienced khansamah to preside over it all. A khansamah is—
You are aware of the term? I had not realized that you had been in India, Reverend … ah. Of course. Esdaile would have used it.
My khansamah was an Indian gentleman of middle age, a Hindoo named Gobinda Shah Ahmadi. He was a man of tact and skill who had been employed by the house’s previous occupant, an East India merchant who had already made the future I hoped to make for myself. He was a likeable man: he knew his place and knew the city—in a short time I came to rely upon him completely.
Gobinda found it unusual that I would choose to decorate my residence with objets d’art, and even more that I was competent to discuss their provenance and cultural significance. I suspect that he had never before met a white man who knew and cared about these things. I was moved to redecorate the house, dispensing with stuffed animal heads and racked hunting rifles and portraits of Arthur Wellesley, replacing them with statues of Lord Shiva and exquisitely carved elephants in jade and alabaster. Gobinda had them kept dust-free and properly arranged.
I remember when I brought the statue home. His reaction was abrupt and severe.
“Fergusson Sahib,” he said. “This is most inappropriate.”
“What?” I asked. “It’s quite a pretty thing.”
And indeed it was: bronze, six or eight inches tall and in exquisite condition. I set it on the sideboard, in front of a handsome mirror.
“No, no, sahib,” he answered. “It will not do.” He even made to reach for it—and I had no idea what he might have done with the object! I interposed myself immediately.
“You will take care with this item, Gobinda,” I said to him. “And you will mind your place.”
He seemed to contemplate a response but held his tongue. I assumed that he valued his position in my household. But he seemed to take a positive dislike to the item thereafter, and so did the rest of the staff. No, not merely dislike; the other servants seemed more frightened than anything else, from the old dirwan—the doorkeeper—to the meanest scullery maid. They avoided it as much as possible.
What? I don’t know. Some taboo, I suppose, some pagan matter. It was clearly not a Hindoo artifact, but there was some suggestion that it was a representation of their death-goddess, the dread Kali, though she has several more arms.
Where did it come from? I don’t recall exactly, sir. I found it in a bazaar somewhere in the Indus Valley while I was on holiday, and I bargained with some local merchant for it. He told me—I remember now—that he thought it might be a fine addition to my collection.
You give them too much credit, Reverend. This was before the Mutiny, of course: most of twenty years ago. We thought then—with reasonable certainty—that there was no backbone to the average man in India, and that their cunning extended only to petty thefts and little intrigues. I scarcely gave a second thought to buying a pretty art object belonging to a dead culture.
Threatening? No, I did not find it so. It was in fact beautiful: a captured moment of some anonymous young girl who lived in the Indus Valley perhaps a thousand years before Christ. The household staff was disturbed by it, and reacted accordingly—all of them refused to touch it, went out of their way to avoid the room where it was placed, and so on. I refused to countenance such superstition and told Gobinda that he should sack any staff who made an issue of it—they could find service in another house if they did not find mine amenable, and despite his excellent service he could take his leave as well.
I did ask. He told me that the presence of the statue would ultimately lead to disharmony and violence. All primitive superstition, of course; I should have employed the services of a man of God to drive it out of the door with the rest of the dirt.
I confess that the staff’s avoidance of the statue made it easier for me to offer it to Esdaile as a gift: I was preparing to leave India and could only take so much with me.
Yes, of course it had value. But quite simply, the item did not match anything—it did not go with anything else in my collection.
WILLIAM DAVEY
I came away from my conversation with Fergusson reinforced with the feeling that something had been withheld. I was already aware that he had lived in the same house as Eliza’s patron, Robert Heath, and that this Gobinda had been khansamah to both—but I knew that Gobinda was a mesmerist of some sort. Could he have caused Fergusson to give the statue to Esdaile?
If Gobinda had been able to influence Fergusson in India, it made me even more suspicious. My efforts during our interview had been ineffective, suggesting the possibility that someone was assisting Fergusson here in London, protecting him as I was protecting Eliza. Perhaps someone else had made a connection between Fergusson and Esdaile.
As I walked along Tottenham Court Road that pleasant afternoon, I concluded that I should ultimately have to deal with this Gobinda—perhaps in person.