Wilder Perkins: Hoare and the Portsmouth Atrocities

"Lieutenant Bartholomew Hoare… Mr. Edward Morrow," Dr. Graves said, nodding to each in turn. "I hardly know which of you takes precedence over the other, so I hope the affronted party will bear with the insult."

"Our host tells me you have visited the New World, sir," Morrow said.

"I have, indeed, sir," Hoare replied, "and I regret the parting of our two countries more than I can say."

"Why, our two countries are still one, Mr. Hoare; at least they were when I last heard from Montreal." He pronounced the town's name in the English manner.

"I beg pardon, sir; I had understood you to be American," Hoare said.

"And have the king's loyal subjects north of the Saint Lawrence no right, sir, to call themselves American? After all, some of us came to America before the Yankees did, while my mother's ancestors were already standing on their native shores to welcome the first European invaders. A welcome which, by the by, many of both peoples lived to regret."

Hoare felt his ears burn. He had meant no offense. Was this formidable-looking man intent upon a quarrel?

"Peace, Mr. Morrow, peace," Mrs. Graves said. Her putty-colored silken gown flattered neither her coloring nor her figure. Perched erect as she was, on a round, squat, cushiony hassock, she looked even more like a partridge than she had that afternoon. A partridge at home at the foot of her pear tree, Hoare thought, keeping her eggs warm.

"You are certainly the person present who is most entitled to the honor of being an American," she told Mr. Morrow, rising from her nest. She left no eggs behind her.

"Mr. Hoare," Dr. Graves said, "I have a request to make of you. Would you permit me to auscult your throat?"

"Aus…?" Hoare had never heard the word before.

"I beg pardon, sir. I detest the parading of professional arcana, as I fear so many of my calling are wont to do. Simply put, as I should have put it in the first place, I would like to listen to the noises your throat might produce when you try to speak. May I do so?"

Hoare could not endure the prurient prying with which some people approached his handicap, but Dr. Graves was his host and obviously a man of talent as well as years, and he felt obliged to agree. He said so.

"Good," Graves replied. He wheeled himself nimbly over to a mahogany stand at the far end of the room, selected two devices, and wheeled back.

"Now, sir. Perhaps you would be so kind as to loosen your kerchief and bend down? Or, on second thought, since Mrs. Graves has conveniently vacated her tuffet, you could take her place on it."

Hoare obediently cast off his neck cloth and sat on Mrs. Graves's tuffet. It was still warm from her posterior.

"Very good," Dr. Graves said. One of his two devices was an eighteen-inch tapered cylinder of polished leather with a flare at the smaller end. Mildly flexible, like a tanned bull's pizzle, it might almost have been one of the speaking trumpets used by serving officers of better voice than his own.

While his wife and Mr. Morrow watched, the doctor applied one end of the cylinder to the scarred spot over Hoare's distorted voice box and said, "Breathe, please."

Hoare breathed.

"Say, 'God save the King.' "

"God save the King," Hoare whispered.

"Now, sing it."

"But I can't sing," Hoare protested.

"Pretend that you can, sir."

Hoare tried. He produced a squawking sound that resembled the call of a corncrake, blushed, and shook his head.

"Very good," Dr. Graves said. He sat back in his wheeled chair. "Now I would like to presume on your kindness for another experiment," he added. He set the tube down and fitted the other device onto his own forehead by a soft leather strap, which Mrs. Graves tightened around his head. This object was a mirror. To Hoare, it resembled the mirrored inner surface of a slice from a hollow sphere, a concave mirror with a round hole in its center.

"Open your mouth, if you please, and lean forward. Very good."

Dr. Graves drew the device down over his head further, adjusting it so that Hoare could see an eye peering at him through the hole.

"Now sing. Do not trouble yourself with the words; just attempt to sing, 'Aaaah,' with your mouth open."

Hoare uttered another macabre squawk, and the doctor sat back in his chair.

"So… so. Very good," he said as Hoare coughed and coughed. "Or rather, not very good, I fear. You may replace your cravat, sir."

"Would you now tell me, sir, what this is all about?" asked Hoare as he complied.

"Well, sir, it was partly an inexcusable curiosity on my part and partly a hope that I might be able to help you recover at least part of your speaking voice. Enough, perhaps, for you to shout commands at sea. You see, I have a special interest in abnormalities of the singing and speaking voices."

Hoare drew a hopeful breath. It was the loss of his voice that had put him on the beach in the first place, for no deck officer can issue audible commands in a whisper. Its recovery could mean his return to sea, perhaps even to the post rank his affliction denied him. It was his dearest wish.

"Well, sir? Your verdict?"

"The vocal cords are, I fear, displaced in your case, in a manner that none of today's surgeons have the skill to repair. I had thought perhaps Monsieur Dupuytren… but no, probably not even he. Besides, Dupuytren is French and would hardly wish to offend his Emperor by releasing a talented officer to battle against his own Navy. Moreover, the cords" are badly atrophied. I am surprised that you do not have difficulty in swallowing. I am sorry."

"Thank you just the same, sir," Hoare whispered.

"It would have been a small return for your having saved Mrs. Graves' life today," the doctor said. He looked up at his wife and put his hand over hers, where it rested on his shoulder. He handed her the mirror and the tube.

"I am most interested in that tube, sir," Mr. Morrow said. "You have not shown it to me before. Will you demonstrate its use to me now?"

"Certainly. Its most common application is in listening to the beating of the heart. Monsieur La+Фnnec-an old friend but another Frenchman, I fear-invented the thing so he could diagnose diseases of the heart and lungs more precisely. Being an amateur of instrument making, as you know already, I have made some small improvements upon his invention. Let you try it, first upon me, and then upon Mr. Hoare, if we can oppress him once more. Then you in turn shall submit to the ordeal, if Mr. Hoare, too, is minded to try the tube."

"I should like it above all things," Hoare said.

"I shall be satisfied to watch," Mrs. Graves commented. Miss Austen concurred with a nod.

"But first," said Mrs. Graves, "I see Agnes hovering in the doorway. I believe she wants to tell me Mrs. Betts says the soles will be getting cold. We must not upset Mrs. Betts, so let us defer the demonstration until after our dinner. Will you, Mr. Hoare, be so kind as to escort me into the dining room while the doctor follows us and accompanies Miss Austen with Mr. Morrow?"

As his host rolled his chair into the adjoining dining room, Hoare overheard him murmur, " 'Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean…' "

Miss Austen spluttered and Hoare suppressed a grin, but he heard no reaction from Mr. Morrow.

"I was noting the appearance of Mr. Hoare and Mrs. Graves as they preceded us," explained Dr. Graves in a normal voice. "Does not the contrast between their two figures remind you of the old nursery rhyme?"

"Of course. Ha ha," Mr. Morrow said dutifully. There was something puzzling here, Hoare thought.

As they discussed the soles, Mrs. Graves, with occasional interjections by the subject, explained to Hoare that Mr. Morrow was the son of an English fur merchant who had settled in Montreal after the cession of Quebec by the French in '63, and thrived. Morrow senior had taken to wife the daughter of a Cree chief, which explained why the son looked as if he would be more at home beside a campfire in the North American wilderness than at the Graveses' board.