Tennyson's Gift Read online

  Jessie listened to the lecture, though she had heard it all before – the pygmies and Napoleon and the Idiot of Amsterdam (aged twenty-five). Lorenzo gave her the Montrose Calculator and she indicated the enormous Organ of Number beside his eyes while mugging in Scots. She watched Dodgson reach up and touch his own head again. Dodgson had Number and Causality so obvious that Lorenzo would instantly guess he was a logician. In phrenological terms Dodgson was a gift; she could hardly wait to give him to her pa.

  But tonight Lorenzo was not to be rushed; he was making his public wait and wait. He was displaying Benjamin Robert Haydon now, showing his lack of Firmness but also his Individuality.

  ‘Persons who have this organ large,’ he said, ‘are apt to personify abstractions.’ Jessie noticed that when he said this, a slim young lad in the audience frowned under his peaked cap as though deeply interested.

  Jessie was very proud of her father sometimes. These people were ripe for the picking. By the time she finally raided the stalls for volunteers, she would be knocked down in the commotion.

  ‘And now,’ said Lorenzo, ‘My daughter Jessie will ask some of you to join me on this little stage. At no extra cost I will conduct a personal analysis. Please do not resist the call; do not insult me by refusing. Our time is short enough.’

  Jessie tugged at his sleeve, as though excited.

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ he commanded her grandly. ‘Find me a head!’

  Dodgson watched with astonishment the downright eagerness of the paying public to be made laughing stocks. Every time Jessie plunged into the audience, he resolved to leave the hall before she did it again – yet something (let’s call it prurience) repeatedly prevented him. Up they went, one after another, to be told that their Ideality was superior to their Adhesiveness, each nodding gravely as if making a mental note, and feeling in their pockets for change (charts and explanations were on sale after). One volunteer had Approbativeness out of all proportion – ‘An intense need for approval, ladies and gentlemen!’ – and then proved the diagnosis, rather neatly, by asking nervously ‘But I do hope that’s a good thing?’

  Dodgson watched enthralled, horrified, especially in that portion of the evening devoted to Mary Ryan, who spoke up well under questioning, was found to have a good mind and strong character, and even agreed to be hypnotized.

  ‘In this experiment,’ said Lorenzo, ‘I will demonstrate the power of Phreno-Magnetism.’

  ‘Oooh,’ said the audience.

  ‘Phreno-Magnetism is the very latest development, and luckily for you Freshwater folks I am its principal exponent. By hypnosis we may cure the diseases of the brain, direct the mind to purity. For we all strive for perfection, do we not?’

  The audience, who had perhaps never looked at itself in quite such a flattering light before, cheerfully agreed that perfection was all it lived for.

  ‘By hypnotizing this young lady I can not only indicate the organs of her brain, but obtain direct access to them. Prepare to be amazed. Simply by touching the Organ of Self Esteem, for example, I will alter this young woman’s demeanour.’

  Mary, in her trance, sat staring forward at the audience, looking slightly disgruntled as she always did.

  ‘Mary, I will now excite your Organ of Self Esteem,’ said Lorenzo, and with his beautiful hands smoothing and swarming over her head, he exerted pressure with his thumbs on a back section of her skull. Dodgson was astonished at her reaction. Mary Ryan sat up straight, held her nose in the air, and gave a look of such confidence that some of the audience started to titter.

  ‘Please do not laugh,’ commanded Lorenzo. ‘Self Esteem is a very serious matter. Mary, tell us what you do from day to day.’

  The hall fell silent. Mary spoke quietly, but they all heard.

  ‘I do work that is beneath me.’

  Mary Ann leaned forward.

  ‘Why do you continue with it?’ asked Lorenzo.

  ‘Because I am indebted to my mistress.’

  ‘Indebted? I see. You mean you are grateful to her?’

  ‘No, that’s different.’

  ‘You are proud, Mary!’

  ‘Not proud, but I know my worth. I may not be beautiful but I am educated. I am not seventeen, but I am tall and stately. I will marry well.’

  ‘You will?’

  ‘I know it.’

  Mary Ann Hillier guffawed, and stopped herself. The audience was agog, but Dodgson shifted in his seat. He hated seeing someone so vulnerable and off-guard. He also hated to hear the lower orders getting above themselves.

  ‘So much for Self Esteem,’ said Lorenzo, releasing his grip. ‘I must explain that if I asked anybody those questions they would reply in the same surprising way. Our true estimation of ourselves may be masked by daily convenience, but the self esteem remains intact, waiting its moment. It is a flame that is never snuffed out.’

  ‘Tho much is taken, much abides?’ said Mary, still in her trance.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Lorenzo, pleasantly surprised. ‘I will now excite your Organ of Mirthfulness, Mary.’ And as he pressed her temples with his fingers Mary started to laugh so cheerfully that the audience laughed with her, and Lorenzo brought her gently out of her trance. Finding herself laughing and joyful, she grasped his hand and would not let go until Jessie grabbed at her skirt and pulled it.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said to Lorenzo, wiping her eyes. ‘I don’t know what you did to me, sir, but don’t I feel a whole lot better for it?’

  All this was very intriguing for Dodgson, but he never forgot his original resolve to leave while someone else was on stage. The last thing he wanted was to be trapped by his own curiosity. A couple of times he changed seats, to encourage his own false perception that he was invisible. He vowed that during the next demonstration he would definitely slip away – and yet, when the next sitter proved to be the mysterious young er-um-Herbert from Dimbola Lodge, he found himself lingering dangerously. There was something very familiar about the young fellow; he made Dodgson think of Twelfth Night for some reason, in which he had once seen Miss Terry play Viola.

  Herbert was on stage already, but refusing absolutely to remove his cap. And the audience jeered at him, to take it off.

  ‘Come now,’ said Lorenzo, ‘You must be reasonable.’

  ‘Either read me with my cap on, or not at all,’ said the fellow in his gruff breathless voice.

  Lorenzo acquiesced, saying he had never done such a thing before, in thirty years as a practical phrenologist. But when he started to feel the youth’s head, he stopped grumbling, because he soon found several things to intrigue him.

  ‘I find that you have large Amativeness, combined with large Hope and small Caution. This will tend to warp your judgement in matters of love, and blind you to obvious failings in the object of your affections.’

  The boy looked up at him in amazement. ‘It doesn’t say all that, does it?’ he said.

  ‘Ah, I see I have hit on a truth,’ said Lorenzo.

  The boy denied it, but looked glum. Down in the audience, Mary Ann nudged Mary Ryan; she liked the look of this boy.

  ‘I think I have never felt a Caution as small as this, sir,’ continued Lorenzo. ‘It will lead you to many rash deeds. You must remember never to confuse Courage with Carelessness, Firmness with Foolhardiness. You would make a fine actor, sir, incidentally.’

  ‘Oh good,’ squeaked Herbert faintly, and tried to rise from his chair. It was clear he would like to step down, but Lorenzo was enjoying himself too much. In all his years of phrenology, he had never encountered a transvestite before – not even on the island of Manhattan! Yet here was one, amazingly, in this little place at the back end of the Isle of Wight.

  He ran his fingers across Herbert’s fine white neck, making him shudder. ‘You have a large Organ of Marvellousness, too – which means you love novelty and adventure,’ he announced to the hall, and then he leaned forward and whispered in Herbert’s ear. ‘Luckily I have Marvellousness large as well. Perhaps we shoul
d get together.’

  He placed his big hands on Herbert’s narrow shoulders. And then he let him go.

  ‘I must explain something now,’ said Lorenzo. ‘This boy seems sad when I tell him what I read in his head. But I think he should be grateful. He is much too young to have made a bad marriage. There is no sign of a beard on his cheek. The motto of the Fowlers is Self Made or Never Made, and I stand by it, young sir. The findings of phrenology are lessons, not prescriptions. Man can, and must, overcome any failing in his nature. How else will he ever be perfect? Now that you know yourself, sir, you must never allow yourself to marry in the hope of being able to work a reform after marriage. You are lucky to receive this warning. It is a lesson many people wish they had been taught!’ But Dodgson noticed how the boy still looked glum, even while the hall cheered and laughed Lorenzo for his wisdom.

  Lorenzo turned again to his people, and pressed his hands together. ‘When you leave here tonight, I want you to write your own epitaph in legible characters on a slip of paper. Make these epitaphs as flattering and eulogistic as possible. Then spend the remainder of your lives endeavouring not only to reach the standard you have raised, but to go far beyond it.’

  Jessie looked up at him in admiration as the crowd threw hats in the air. She felt a lump in her throat. What a man!

  ‘And now!’ said Lorenzo. The audience held its breath, while Jessie stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. Lorenzo grinned, and looked directly at Dodgson in the back row.

  ‘And now!’ he repeated, ‘We have time for the last, but most special, demonstration of the evening.’ He pointed at Dodgson. ‘Would you come forward, please, sir? It has not escaped my daughter Jessie’s attention how closely you have followed proceedings this evening!’

  Dodgson felt his body jerk with the shock. Trapped and sick, he wanted to shut up like a telescope. Jessie ran straight to the back row and pointed to him and the audience turned round to look. ‘Go wan then!’ they heckled. ‘Wouldn’t you guess it ud be an overner tho?’ (They were disappointed. The star turn was someone from the mainland.)

  Should he run? Should he shout ‘Fire’? Miserably Dodgson stumbled to the front and took his seat in a chair beside Lorenzo. Up close, he could see that the man wore a small amount of theatrical make-up. His big pliable hands smelled of sandalwood and other people’s hair oil. Dodgson realized he had at last discovered something other people had that he did not wish to share.

  ‘If I may ask your forbearance, ladies and gentlemen, I will ask my assistant Jessie to tell you her first impressions of our friend’s head here. For at this point it is my great pleasure to ask Jessie Fowler – the Infant Phrenologist! – to take her very first public reading!’

  Dodgson blinked in horror as the crowd cheered.

  ‘May I ask your name, sir?’

  Dodgson clenched his fists, swallowed hard and got it out. ‘Dodgson,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Dodgson,’ said Jessie, stepping forward with a big threatening smile. (She got a round of applause.) ‘I thought we might start with the base of your cranium, where I perceive, ladies and gentlemen, that the Organ of Philoprogenitiveness is considerably enlarged.’

  She said ‘Organ of Philoprogenitiveness’ as if it was ‘Bread and butter’. Which in a way, of course, it was.

  Dodgson fought for breath. ‘We ought to explain, Jessie,’ added Lorenzo, ‘that Philoprogenitiveness is the love of children.’

  ‘It is, father. It is a great addition in a parent, and I have always been glad to know that you have it substantial, Pa.’

  The audience laughed at the cute, pre-rehearsed joke, but Dodgson felt weightless in his distress. Jessie had climbed on a stool behind his chair. He could feel her breath on his ear. He could smell her clothes. And then, gently, Jessie laid her small warm fingers on the back of Dodgson’s skull and massaged it. The unprecedented intimacy of this contact with an eight-year-old girl – in front of a hundred people – made Dodgson want to scream like a railway engine.

  ‘Mr Dodgson, may I ask if you have any children of your own?’ began Jessie. But he heard it only as in a dream. Jessie, who had been all set to ask what the name ‘Daisy’ meant to him, had already lost her first client, as Dodgson’s conscious psyche simply snapped under the strain. His body twitched and whiplashed beneath her hands.

  ‘Pa!’ she cried in horror, and Lorenzo leapt forward to assure the audience everything was under control. But the good people of Freshwater stood up and gasped, with their hands to their mouths, as Dodgson reeled and writhed in his chair. No one had ever seen anything like it. Dodgson reeled and writhed, he stretched and drawled; and finally – some might say inevitably – he fainted in coils.

  Part Two

  Hats Off

  Seven

  Freshwater Bay is easily located on a map of the Isle of Wight. Imagine the island as a pair of pursed lips – the kiss-me mouth of Lillian Gish comes to mind – and Freshwater is on the bottom lip, to the far left, a small imperfection in an otherwise smooth line of high chalk cliff. There is an apocryphal story told of a Russian tsar, asked by his engineers to indicate on a map where a major railway track should be plotted. With a loud exclamation of ‘Do I have to do everything?’, he took a ruler and drew a straight line – through hills, forests, churches, whatever. And so the railway was built exactly as he drew it, but where his fingers accidentally overlapped the ruler’s edge, there came two kinks, which the engineers faithfully replicated. Freshwater Bay is like the kink of a tsar’s fingertip. For no observable reason, the chalk dips dramatically for the tiny bay, and then quickly rises up again to lordly heights, as if embarrassed about the lapse.

  It is named Freshwater because the River Yar rises here, not far from the sea, and flows perversely in the other direction, across flat land, to the northern coast at (of course) Yarmouth. If the sea defences were knocked down at Freshwater Bay, the waters would merge, and the West Wight become a tiny island of its own, as perhaps it once was. But in 1864 a small isthmus keeps the Isle of Wight in one piece, and that highly insular poet Tennyson is obliged to put up with it, here at the quiet limit of the world. From his windows at Farringford, he can survey the Afton Down, which he says dates back four hundred million years. From the top of his cliff, he can look to the Needles, stately in their lucid mist. He appreciates grand views. It has been shrewdly observed by modern critics that in Tennyson’s poetry, there is no middle distance – things are either big and far, or small and near. Had Victorian ophthalmology been more advanced, the history of English poetry might have been quite other.

  Three days after the phrenology lecture, at half past three on Monday, Ellen stood on Tennyson’s cliff and watched the laureate point his face at the warm wind and the sea’s horizon, his big heavy eyes closed thoughtfully as though he were listening to what the waves were saying six hundred feet below. She recognized the posture and expression from Watts, of course, who had a knack of falling into such a reverie without warning, usually in the middle of a railway terminus. It was whisper-of-the-Muse time – all very worthwhile and pretty on a clifftop with a poem coming on; not so useful if you were racing for an express.

  Perhaps she should tweak the laureate’s nose, while stamping on his foot and shouting, ‘Wake up’. (It usually worked for Watts.) But no, she could just imagine all the tiresome recriminations afterwards, if he fell off the cliff and she trailed home without him, carrying his hat. ‘Where’s Alfred?’ they would ask. And she would sit down in a huff, ‘Don’t start.’

  The grass up here was tough and springy, and it mingled with abundant tiny flowers – blue orchids which took the modest course of choosing survival over display. ‘They must have Caution pretty huge,’ she said to herself, and twiddled with one, attempting to pull it out. She would like an orchid, and Alfred was unlikely to offer her any. If she just took one while he had his eyes closed, he would never be the wiser.

  Tennyson leaned into the wind. The thing about this man, she realized as she watched his
cloak furl and crack behind him like a flag, was that he was rather like a cliff himself. His large white face looked hewn and shaped by centuries of rain and landslip; and all his life (even when it was quite unnecessary) he seemed to defy a gale, staunch on his stocky Lincolnshire legs, with his chest puffed out. Here was a man who would never discover a sheltered place in the world and then relax in it. Tennyson was a walking personification of the verb ‘to buffet’. When Watts was cut up by a review, Ellen had observed that he would mend again by teatime. But Tennyson went all to tatters, and displayed his wounds perpetually, even to people who strenuously desired not to see them. Perhaps his Approbativeness needs looking at, thought Ellen (who was now fully up to speed in phrenological jargon). Tennyson’s Approbativeness must be the size of a baby gnat.

  Watts had been asked to come, but had declined. You would never get Watts up here, so far from anything upholstered. Though he loved the elements, he preferred to paint them indoors, out of his own head, and since he started visiting Freshwater he had tried the cliff walk only twice. The first time he was sick, and the second time his hat blew off. (How Tennyson kept his big hat on, incidentally, while striding through gales on his daily walk, was a marvel to all who knew him.)

  But Ellen was glad Watts stayed at home. It gave her time to reflect on the phrenology lecture, and her little adventure as Herbert. Appreciating for the first time the variety in the shapes and sizes of the human head, she suddenly understood why hatters went mad. As for her own head, large Hope and small Caution, that was Ellen’s destiny – and she thought (as obviously she was destined to) that this was excellent news. And hang the consequences. Watts was always posing her as Hope in some grisly picture or other (‘Hope is a Good Breakfast but a Bad Supper’; ‘There is Hope from the Mouth of the Sea, but None from the Mouth of the Grave’). What a lark that he had been right all along.