“I can see that I’ve upset you,” he answered, reaching out and touching her hand. “And I believe I know what it is that’s so unsettling for you. You’re trying to connect all of this to George, aren’t you? You think that his blood, too, was tainted. Jilly, it may be so, but it’s not your fault. And if the taint is in fact a disease, it probably wasn’t his fault either. You can’t blame yourself that your husband may have been some kind of…of carrier. And even if he was, surely his influence is at an end now? You mustn’t go on believing that it…that it isn’t over yet.”
“Then convince me otherwise,” she answered, a little calmer now that she could speak openly of what was on her mind. “Tell me about these things, so that I’ll better understand them and be able to make up my own mind.”
Jamieson nodded. “Oh, I can tell you,” he said, “if only by repeating old wives tales—myths and rumours—and fishermen’s stories of mermaids and the like. But the state of your nerves, I’d really rather not.”
“My nerves, yes,” she said. “Wait.” And she fetched a glass of water and took two of her pills. “There, and now you can see that I’m following doctor’s orders. Now you must follow my orders and tell me.” And leaning forward in her chair, she gripped his forearms. “Please. If not for my sake…for Anne’s?”
And knowing her meaning, how could he refuse her?
“Very well,” the old man answered. “But my dear, this thing you’re worrying about, it is—it has to be—a horrible disease, and nothing more. So don’t go mixing fantasy and reality, for that way lies madness.”
And after a moment’s thought he told her the rest of it…
• • •
“The stories I’ve heard…well, they were incredible. Legends born of primitive innocence and native ignorance both. You see, with regard to Dagon, those islanders had their own myths which had been handed down from generation to generation. Their blood and looks being so debased, and the taint having such a hold on them—probably since time immemorial—they reasoned that they had been created in the image of their maker, the fish-god himself, Dagon.
“Indeed they told those old sea captains just such stories, and also that in return for worshipping Dagon they’d been given all the wealth of the oceans in the abundance of fish they were able to catch, and in the strange golden alloy, which was probably washed out of their mountains in rainy-season streams. It would be the native priests, of course—their witch doctors, priests of Dagon or his ‘esoteric order’—who secretly worked the gold into the jewellery whose remnants we occasionally see today.
“But the modern legend—the one you’ll hear in Innsmouth and its environs—is that in return for the good fishing and the gold, the natives gave of their children to the sea, or to manlike beings who lived in the sea: the so-called ‘Deep Ones,’ servitors of Dagon and other alleged, er, ‘deities’ of the deep, such as Great Cthulhu and Mother Hydra. And the same legend has it that Innsmouth’s sea captains, in their lust for alien gold, the favours of mainly forgotten gods out of doubtful myths, and the promise of life everlasting, followed suit in the sacrifice of their young to Dagon and the Deep Ones. Except they were not sacrifices as such but matings! Thus in both legends, it became possible to blame the ‘Innsmouth look’ or taint on this miscegenation: the mingling of Deep One and clean human blood. But of course no such matings took place because there’s no such thing as a merman! Nor was there ever, but that didn’t stop a handful of the more degenerate Innsmouth people from adopting the cult, as witness that weathered, white-pillared hall dedicated to the Esoteric Order of Dagon.
“Which leaves only the so-called ‘epidemic’ of 1927-28…
“Well, seventy years ago our society was far less tolerant. And sad to say that when stories leaked out of Innsmouth of the sheer scale of the taint—the numbers of inbred, diseased and malformed people living there—the federal government’s reaction was excessive in the extreme. But there’s little doubt that it would have been the same if AIDS had been found there in the same period: panic, and a knee-jerk reaction, yes. And so there followed a vast series of raids and many arrests, and a burning and dynamiting of large numbers of rotting old houses along the waterfront. But no criminal charges were brought and no one was committed for trial; just vague statements about malignant diseases, and the covert dispersal of a great many detainees into various naval and military prisons.
“Thus old Innsmouth was depopulated, and these seventy-odd years later its recovery is still only very sluggish. There is, however, a modern laboratory there now, where pathologists and other scientists—some of them Innsmouth people themselves—continue to study the taint and to offer what help they may to the descendants of survivors of those frenzied federal raids. I worked there myself, however briefly, but it was disheartening work to say the least. I saw sufferers in every stage of degeneration, and could only offer the most basic assistance to any of them. For among the doctors and other specialists there…well, the general concensus is that there’s no hope for a cure as yet for those with the Innsmouth blood. And until or unless the taint is allowed to die out by gradual dispersion or depletion of that diseased foreign gene pool, there shall always be those with the Innsmouth look…”
Jilly was as calm as Jamieson had ever seen her now—too calm, he thought—like the calm before a storm. Her eyes were unblinking and had a distant quality, but her look was reflective rather than vague or vacant. And finally, after a few long moments of silence, the old man prompted her, “What now, Jilly? Is something still bothering you?”
Her gaze focussed on him and she said, “Yes. I think there is one more thing. You said something about everlasting life—that the Innsmouth seafarers had been promised everlasting life if they embraced the worship of Dagon and these other cult figures. But…what if they reneged on the cult, turned back from such worship? You see, toward the end George frequently rambled in his sleep, and I’d often hear him say that he didn’t want to live forever, not like that. He meant his condition, of course. But I can’t believe—no, no, I can! I do!—that he believed in s-s-such things. So, do you think—I mean, is it p-p-possible—that my husband was once a m-member of that old Innsmouth c-c-cult? And could there be anything of t-truth in it? I mean, anything at all?”
Jamieson shook his head. “Anything to it? Only in his mind, my dear. For you see, as George’s condition worsened, it would have been more than a merely physical thing. He would have been doing what you are doing: looking for an explanation where none exists. And having had to do with those cultists—and knowing the legends—he might have come to believe that certain things were true. But as for you, you mustn’t. You simply mustn’t!”
“B-b-but that tainted blood,” she said, her voice a whisper now, as if from far away. “His blood, and Geoff’s blood, and…and w-w-what of Anne’s?”
“Jilly, now I want you to listen.” The old man took hold of her arms, grasping her very firmly. And of all the lies or half truths he had told her in the past half hour, the next would be his biggest deceit of all. “Jilly, I have known you and Anne—especially Anne—for quite a while now, and from my knowledge of the Innsmouth taint, and also from what I know and have seen of your daughter, I would be glad to stake my reputation on the fact that she is as normal as you or I.”