The Monster and the Butterfly

Six - Carnation

March 12, 1894

This evening, I write this entry with the utmost disappointment.

The new gardener—Claude told me that her name is Miss Sophie Wickes, so one must have anticipated that such news that she is yet unmarried would have left me elated—is not what I expected her to be. To be forthright, I would be a liar if I said I was not disheartened about this.

From afar, I had held a particular attraction for her otherwise unassuming features, though I was not shy of horrified by the uncouth nature of her tongue, her abrasive nature. Not only did the brusqueness of her whole being stun me, but I almost felt revolted by how she said her words. They were the words of a proper young lady, but they were made filthy and harsh by the dialect of the East End, of the Cockneys.

And how loathly I feel, knowing how even her face, the lack of effort that showed in how she had chosen to present herself, were a displeasure to me. At a distance, within the crowds of Whitechapel, she was a full-faced cherub with finely sculpted features and hair that I could only imagine pouring down her back like freshly melted gold when not bound or plaited. But once I was close to her, so close I could smell the dung from the streets still plastered to her skirts and boots, she was naught the nymph that ensnared me. No, she was a husk of beauty. Her features were sunken and pallid underneath a thin layer of grime hiding freckles splattered across a slightly upturned nose. And her hair? There was none. Just a sheared scalp littered with patches of yellow fuzz, as though someone had trimmed an alley cat for the sake of not catching its fleas and diseases.

When she turned in search of me (at first, I was amused that her eyes repeatedly scanned over my hiding spot in the shadows of the dining hall's deep corners, utterly, blissfully naïve of where I was, of who I was, what I was), I felt pity upon seeing the emptiness of her eyes. They had possessed the briefest glimmer of an excitement that warmed my chest when she caught her first gander of the gardens—her domain now—though as soon as it had appeared, it was abruptly diminished by an unspoken anger, sorrow, and fear that kept her pale lips pursed over crooked and pronounced buck teeth. That advertising smile, the one that I had come to dream of, from Whitechapel never reached her eyes. It had all been a lie, a deception.

I had been lied to! How I am a fool!

I still feel the lingering burn of fury when ruminating on how she appeared to loathe and dismiss my gifts. I had Claude clean every inch of the master bedroom, cleared it of all dust and age, and made sure that the vanity and wardrobe were filled with every dress, perfume and ribbon a woman could ever desire. And yet she rejected them?

Do women not like gifts? Do they not adore being presented with dresses, the finest perfumes, coats lined with fine mink fur? Do they not like silken sheets and bedspreads made from adequate hides and furs?

It seems that it may not be true, how stupid of me.

And, clearly, I have over-excited myself with the idea of a woman being in my home. A woman who has fooled me, using a guise to mask the embittered and uncouth tongue within her mouth. And I am a fool.

I am a damn fool.

~Edgar Ignatius Cushing