Further Excerpts from "Quinn"

As you no doubt know, I never did finish my NaNoWriMo novel--though bravo to all of you who did, and I'm determined to get beyond 2009's 35,000 words this year--but I still have an affection for what I did manage to churn out, and for the rest of the story that I hope to finish some time in the future. Anyway, here are a few more samples of what I did manage to get written. I hope you enjoy, and I promise I shall finish the story properly one day :)

I am no author, but it comes to my mind that the best way in which to begin the story of a life would be to start at the beginning: that is, at the birth of the subject. Here I am afraid I must already fail you, for I cannot remember the day of my birth, nor the occasion, and I have never in all my life found any one who could enlighten me on the subject. In an attempt to save the situation I shall now list the plain and pertinent facts that I do know, poor as they are, in whatever order that seems to me most logical: 1, that I know I was born a child unwanted, given freely to the orphanage by a hale mother when I was not yet forty-eight hours into this world; 2, that I have never discovered the names of either my mother or my father, nor did they feel it necessary to inform me of mine; 3, that the tender years of my infancy I spent in as much misery as any child can bear, though in better health than many of my fellow orphans, for I have always had a hearty constitution, and 4, that I was saved from my purgatory when I was six old, by a man named Gabriel, and brought by him into a new life. Since this is the first true birth of mine that I can recall, it is here that I shall begin my story.

The day was December the fifth, in the Year of our Lord 1849. The time was just about six o’clock in the morning, perhaps a little after, and snow was falling. It was a Monday, I remember, because the day before had been a Sunday made memorable by my being struck a terrific clout to the head after service by Mrs. Palmer, the mistress of the orphanage where I lived, for not paying her esteemed husband’s after-supper sermon the attention and respect that she thought it deserved. As to whether I was truly guilty, I cannot say, aside from admitting that it is true that I do not now remember the sermon, though I do remember the clout. No doubt it was a fine sermon, though, for Mr. Palmer was quite the pious orator when it meant the opportunity to expound upon the failings in other men’s virtue.

As I turn my memory back to that time I see as though in a photograph or film the child I was at the time, being but six years of age. He was small for his age, wretchedly thin, his small hands already calloused with chores and work, his ankles and wrists swollen with the cold. His clothes were poor, his shoes non-existent. His face was thin and peaked and pale; his eyes were grey and inquisitive; his hair and brows very dark and straight. He was a poor, ugly, starved, pitiable thing, inquisitive and nervous and slowly pining. I know that boy was I, but it is hard now to believe.

That boy who was I was one of perhaps a score and seven children kept in the little cottage-turned-orphanage on the outskirts of Little Camden. St. Alboin’s was not a religious institution, but was instead the private residence of a husband and wife, having only four bedrooms, in addition to the sitting room, the kitchen, and the front hall. Some houses for orphans were charitable places, caring for abandoned children for the sake of true Christian compassion and the goodness of the owners’ hearts, but St. Alboin’s was unfortunately not one of them. The room he slept in he shared with nine other boys, all of whom would lay upon narrow pallets on the floor like so many bricks in a wall, packed securely but far too close for comfort. Now and then the older boys in the room would grow too vexed with the situation and after the master and mistress of the home had retired to their own chamber the bullies would rouse a younger boy from his sleep and force him to leave the room and find sleep elsewhere, so that they might snatch his blanket and pallet and the little extra space that his vacancy provided. The boy was often picked as the nocturnal outcast, for he was small for his age and being even then given to solitary thought instead of the games of his fellow orphans he did not have any friends to defend him. As any boy found out of his bed and room before the mistress’ wake-up call in the morning would be subject to severe punishment, he would usually be forced to serve his period of exile by slipping out of the bedroom window and using the creepers and brickwork on the side of the house as a ladder down to the yard, where he would attempt to snatch some sleep until it was time to climb back up and in before Mrs. Palmer rapped upon his door. The boy did not mind the expulsion as much as he might have, as what little of the stars could be seen through the factory fumes was beautiful, and at least in the yard he had as much room to himself as he could wish. The only difficulty was the cold. Summer nights spent in such a fashion were very pleasant; winter nights were a purest form of torture.

The master of the house, whose name was Palmer, was a florid, healthy man. My memories of him consist mainly of the ruddy sheen of his face, the crisp but yellowing wig he would wear perched upon his head, and the peculiar way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, as though they were hastily retreating away from his mirth. We children soon learned upon our arrival at St. Alboin’s that it was best to follow suit, for Palmer was a stolid man and rarely laughed save only when he was drunk, and then he was liable to find outlet for his merriment by seizing whatever boy happened to be nearest and proceeding to give the unfortunate a good thrashing. I was not caught often, for I was nimble and small, and I did not like Palmer, being well pleased to keep my distance from him at all possible times. When sober he mainly ignored us children, save only when he waxed philanthropic by scolding us for our failings and doing his utmost to impress upon us the utter wretchedness of our situation in life, our being all parentless and penniless and living only upon his own charity. I generally ignored him as he ignored me, seeing him as nothing more than a great fool, whom I disliked but did not fear. It was his wife I went in constant fear of, and of the serving woman she employed to help mind us and the house. Both were quite unafraid to use the brunt force of a heavy fist upon our ears as punishment for anything they interpreted as mischief, and not infrequently madame would refer a child to her husband to beat properly for a more serious offense. Now that I have a more extensive experience with the adult world to draw upon, something that I in my isolation severely lacked when I was a child, I do not think that she thought of herself as cruel, but only severe and inflexible in the only way she knew how. It is the best excuse I can give her for the terror she instilled in those of us who were under her rule. At the time, however, she seemed to me both sadistic and brutal, her rules and strictures being the most dreadful things in the world, and her punishments most harsh, and I for one was made none the better for them.

Palmer and his wife took us children in for as much of a business reason as a charity reason, for Palmer’s elder brother was the owner and manager of the textile factory on the other side of town, and despite the new laws implemented then regarding the labor of children in industrial factories, children were commonly still seen as valuable workers by such men: cheap, small, numerous, and expendable. With his younger brother operating an unofficial orphan home, snatching children from the gutters in the name of charity, the factory owner had easy access to an under-age labor force which he could take and use without attracting the notice of the London officials, who were, alas, not omniscient, particularly in monitoring the doings in little towns so near the northern Scottish border. The wicked truth was the Palmers took in whatever orphaned or unwanted children they could find on the streets, clothed them and fed them enough to keep alive but starved them of any kindness or happiness and beyond teaching them the simplest prayers and how to sign their own names, did not bother to educate them, as those children--and to think I was one of them!--were being raised not as human beings but as merchandise, commodities to be tended at a minimum and then sold for a profit.

So every half-year or thereabout a carriage would rumble to St. Alboin’s front gate, the men would speak hurriedly but at length in Palmer’s study, money would change hands, and a handful of orphans would be plucked from our ranks, fussed over, given a fine parting meal by the women, and then spirited away into the carriage which would carry them away swiftly down the dusky road as night fell, while the rest of us were made to line dutifully along the picket fence and wave our farewells until our former playmates had quite vanished.

This was not quite the universal fate of children at St. Alboin’s, of course; some boys would occasionally be adopted as hands for farmers in the surrounding county, and some would run away. But the great majority were raised only to become workers at the factory, where most of them would die of hardship before they reached their sixteenth year. At the time, of course, I was almost entirely ignorant of the politics of my upbringing and the dark significance of the black carriage with its men. The first time I can remember watching the carriage rumble away without me, I was around two years of age, and I cried all the night after because I was crushed at not being chosen, at not being wanted and not being taken away. I never cried about it again, but the pain of not being thought worthy enough was always there like a shard of glass in my throat, hurting and hurting. I was, I suppose, a supremely foolish child.

When I was old enough to ask about my birth parents, I did summon the courage to ask Mrs. Palmer about them, and since she was above all a practical-minded woman she did not see any reason to evade the question. That is how I know that I was not orphaned through the death of my parents, nor for any tragic reason beyond that my mother simply did not want me, which I suppose is after a fashion the most tragic reason there could be. My mother did not disclose her name the day she arrived at St. Alboin’s to hand me over, but she was dressed decently if not richly--was dressed in a pastel colour--, had dark hair and dark eyes, was somewhat short, smiled frequently, had good teeth, was not more than twenty-five, and possibly much younger. More details I was not able to draw from Mrs. Palmer, and so that is all the picture I have of the woman who bore me. It was enough to haunt my dreams for years after, though, and to instill in my young heart a sensation approaching horror at the thought of a woman who could be young and beautiful and smile as she gave away her son because she did not want him. Until I met Gabriel, the feeling of being born unwanted and living unwanted was an obsession approaching a morbid fascination to me, and no doubt contributed to my growing up with a very solitary and introspective disposition . . .


. . . The gentleman turned back towards me, and crouched down upon the rug.

"What do they call you, boy?"

But I would not answer that. I hated my name, hated it so much it galled me like a blister on my thumb. Mrs. Palmer took it upon herself to answer in my stead.

“This is Wilfrid, sir, who has lived here all his life. We found him upon our steps six years ago, give or take a few months. It was the twelfth of October, and the feast of the goodly saint Wilfred of Ripon, which is why we christened him with the name.”

“Wilfrid is a fine name, lad.” His eyes were kindly and laughing at once, surprisingly alive in his tired face with its white hairs. “Do you know, one of my favorite novels tells the story of a hero named Wilfrid. It’s an adventure story, with knights and sieges and lovely ladies. You can read it if you like, once we reach the house. And it’s a fine thing to be named for a saint.”

“I cannot read. And I hate him.”

“Be reasonable, child,” Gabriel said quietly, with a hint of shocked disapproval in his voice that I, all unrepentant, easily detected. “To hate is a strong and poisonous thing. The man lived a holy life, and never did any wrong to you.”

“It was on his day that my mother chose to give me up.”

There was a long, slow silence. I was suddenly terrified that I had spoken too much, too many secrets. Then the gentleman leaned slightly forward so that his face was level with the mine.

“What is the name you would like to be known by, then?”

This time I hesitated, the secret name roiling against the back of my teeth, against my closed lips. I could taste it there, the sweetness of the secret, as strong a tang as the coppery tang of blood, as sweet as molasses sugar. It was the first time in my long life that I would taste secret words unspoken upon my tongue, but it would not be the last. But the gentleman’s voice and eye was very kind, and I understood by then instinctively that here was a man who would not laugh at my precociousness, nor scold me it. That strange unknowing knowledge was enough to make me already love him. Food was not the only commodity starved from the children in that house, and I had always been lonely, even if I had not entirely realized it.

“I call myself Julian,” I whispered.

“Very well, Julian,” he said, quite seriously and shifting position a little with a wince that betrayed the stiffness of his old joints. “It is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Gabriel. Would you like to come home with me?”

For a moment I could not speak, and then I ventured: “I would, sir, I would like it very much, sir.”. . .


. . . Mr. Gabriel Quinn was a man of set habits. Every morning he woke at six and was dressed and presentable by six-thirty, whereupon he would take a half-hour stroll outdoors before breakfast. When I was small I rarely woke in time to walk with him, though sometimes I did, but as I grew older I became keener to join him on those morning excursions, and so learned to imitate his orderly way of living and to regulate my waking and sleeping hours. When I was small, those morning walks were like glorious romps, with the streets only beginning to wake up, or when we occasionally ventured out into the fields, there were crickets to capture and examine, and bedewed grasses taller than I to whip at my face. This custom of the morning stroll still remained well into my teen years, and even after I had removed to London for my studies, I never missed a morning when I visited home. Those walks in later years were more philosophical and serious in nature, opportunities for us to debate the possibilities of electromagnetic engines and the practicality of ____________.

Breakfast would be served at seven, but he would refrain from opening the newspaper until after the dishes were cleared. He did not smoke, nor drink excessively, and was always the picture of benevolent gentility. As he settled down to his papers and books and letter writing, I would make my way to the sunny, wide-windowed room where I knew I would find my French tutor waiting. I was never late, desiring by my punctuality to impart a favorable and mature impression upon the man. He was a Frenchman long in England, so that although he spoke with an accent it was only just strong enough to be aristocratic, without consciously reminding me that he was a foreigner. I liked him, and he was fond of me, for one evening when he stayed for supper I overheard him praise me to Gabriel that I was the brightest and most dedicated pupil he had ever had the pleasure of teaching. That could, of course, have been the wine speaking, for he was exceedingly fond of the vintage, but I believe his enthusiasm was at least mostly genuine.

After my studies for the day were completed in the early afternoon, I was charged with finding Gabriel in his study and would then spend anywhere from fifteen minutes to a full hour with him, reporting all I had learned that day and having him explain to me anything I had found difficult. He was very well-spoken and well-educated, and always had time enough to help. After the interview was over, I was left to my own devices until supper at six, and generally would rush out of doors to find my playmate Caulton, who would generally be waiting for me. We would have a merry time, usually playing one game or another based upon or inspired by our latest reading material. Hektor and Achilleus, Odysseus and the horrendous Cyclops, Launcelot and Gawain, who began as friends and ended their days as bitter foes. I suppose there is some foreshadow in that, at least.

At other times our games would be dictated by the fertile mind of Caulton himself, who even at that tender age was as marked out for a future in the writing of fiction as I was destined for the life of a scientific inventor, and those days were when we would play the parts of heroes that he would conjure from his own fancies. Our most frequent characters were that of the Night and the Day, who were according to his mythos two brothers eternally in conflict, each seeking an unknown secret on the earth that would give him sole power over the world for ever. He was always Night, though his hair was fair and his eyes were blue, for he thought the role dark and mysterious and therefore more appealing. I, in my turn, was always perfectly content with playing the part of Day, though my sunny name belied my dark hair and pale skin. Day is the time of light, of illumination; of the discovery of secrets and the enlightenment of men’s minds.

Sometimes Caulton would take supper with Gabriel and myself, but this was rare. Far more frequently my guardian and I took our meals together just the two of us, and I liked it that way. After supper was over I would sometimes follow Gabriel into the sitting room and sit upon a stool at his feet, and he would favor me with a story, either of his own life or a paraphrase of a book he was reading at the time, for he was a great reader. In that he got along with Caulton extremely well, for both had the same liking of adventure stories. I myself preferred the old romances and epics, and, when I was a little older, the fierce mythologies of the Celts. But in this way I learned a little more about Mr. Gabriel Quinn and the life he had lived before he discovered me in that little shed at St. Alboin’s.

As I have mentioned before, he was a purveyor of antiques, having inherited the family business from his father in his young days and with perseverance and aptitude, not to mention a considerable amount of luck, he became rich from his practice and being able to add this to the money he inherited from his father also--for his family had never been quite poor, and were indeed well-t0-do--he was able to not only refurbish and rebuild his ancestral home at Brownstone manor, but was also able to marry. Despite wedding young, he had no children, and his wife had died some years before he adopted me. The loneliness, he said, had become too much, as well as the feeling of having missed his chance at something important, the chance of having done something in his lifetime worth being remembered for.

“Remember, Julian,” he would tell me, the lamplight soft and dark in the folds and hollows of his burgundy dressing gown and his knobbed old fingers steepled thoughtfully, “what every man really wants in the end is immortality. Sometimes, I feel that the immortality of the soul, though marvelous in its own right, is not by itself enough. It is in man’s nature to want a little immortality upon the earth, as well as in the heavenly spheres. I don’t mean by this the mummification or other heathen rites of immortality that the old civilizations used, but instead the immortality of deeds, good deeds. I took you from that orphanage because I admired your resilience and your intelligence, lad, that much is true, but it was also because I knew that by taking you from there I could give you a new lease upon life. When I am gone, you will live on, and to judge by your already evident skills, you will do great things. You will be my immortality, Julian,” and then he would smile and bid me good night, and I would climb the long stairs up to my blue-and-cream bedroom, where I would fall asleep while still listening for any rumors of his movement on the floor below, for although an early riser, Gabriel was also prone to staying awake late into the night, usually reading.

“You will be my immortality”--How my eyes must have shone as I listened to the pride in his voice! To accomplish the great deeds which he promised me was the dearest dream of my heart, and something I looked forward to even as I worked at my studies by day and played the golden afternoons away with Caulton. And I am afraid it was not entirely a dream fueled by gratitude and love for the man who had rescued me from my previous wretched existence. For I knew that although to accomplish some mighty thing would be to win immortality for my beloved foster father, I also realized that it would equally mean immortality of the same kind for myself. . . . .


. . . Those were my happy years. It saddens me a little to recall them now, knowing that they could not last forever, but wishing all the same that they had lingered a little longer, just a little longer. The days blur indistinctly into one long golden ribbon, so that I cannot tell you more. I see the pictures of days and events, but I cannot remember now what order they came in. Know therefore that I grew up healthy and happy, my mind ever quickening and my thirst not only for knowledge but also for my turn to transform that knowledge into things new and wonderful became ever stronger. Those were happy years, but already was planted within me the seed that would eventually bring me so near to destruction. I wanted immortality, and Gabriel had assured me that it was mine for the taking. . . .


. . . So much for my scientific studies. It is easier to skim over extended periods of my life quickly as though they mattered less than others than it was to live through them at the time, but that is the nature of this business of writing one’s own life over, I suppose. At any rate, in short order I was eighteen years old, a student at university, studying in earnest and close to entirely absorbed in my work. I have already shown the main obsessions of my life up to this point: Mr. Gabriel Quinn, my benefactor; John Caulton, my closest friend; and my scientific studies, which pointed the way to eternity. Yet now, there was to enter my life the fourth of my life’s greatest obsessions, and one which nearly would blot out all of the other three. Her name was Diana Whitton, and at the time when I first saw her she was but sixteen years old.

Caulton insisted upon us going out to celebrate my nineteenth birth-day with what he termed ‘a real party’, which I knew meant nothing more than finding a decent pub somewhere with cheap food and excellent wine and getting rip-roaring drunk. Normally I would not have allowed him to persuade me to consent to such dissipation, as I was in those days acutely conscious of my own appearance and what other men thought of me. My customary outfits were sharp enough, indeed the best money could buy without being flamboyant, and I took care always to oil and curl my hair, which to my grief was far more difficult for me to do that it was for Caulton, whose fine, fair hair was quite pliable. My own hair has always been heavy, and was reluctant to hold any shape I wished to put it in. But I did not quite belong in academia yet, despite all my preening. I do not know now whether I looked a fool to the other young students, but I felt sure I did then, and I had none of their in-born airs. In the vast maze and treacherous morass of London all I had was my intellect, my ambition, and the feeling of superiority with which I comforted myself when I was sober and all the other students were drunk . . . .