In 1962, I found the journals of my great-great-uncle.
His name was Horace Meltmoth, a resident of York in the 1800s. Born with extremely poor eyesight, Horace was instead gifted with an exceptional sense of smell. With this, he navigated the city using nothing but aroma as a guide.
In those days, the city walls contained almost every odour imaginable. It would have been a scent to behold!
In the 1800s, York stank. It stank of cocoa and candied peels. It stank of toasted crusts from Petergate’s bakeries; of sweet, fresh market produce; of the burnt caramel of the maltings; of floral notes wafting from Museum Gardens and Dean’s Park. But even these strong aromas stood little chance against the stink of fermenting blood and offal in the Shambles, out-reeked only by the fish market of the Foss and the acrid dyes of Tanner Row.
Then there was the ever-present pungency of spilled chamber pots, sickness and armpits, of course, and dried manure, carried along by the filth of the rivers into which most foul-smelling things eventually ended up.
The constant stench perturbed Horace more than anyone else. To himself, he said:
“Something has to be done.”
As though answered, perfumers began arriving from London. For Horace, it was about to get worse.
The fragrances the perfumers brought were made without discipline or skill. People did not seem to care—they washed their clothes with crudely fragranced soap and sprayed nauseating substances on their bodies. And when that was not enough, they used these concoctions to scour away the natural scents of the streets.
Horace's nose was blinded, and he could no longer find his way around the city. He could not distinguish one person from another. He could not tell porters from chandlers, bakers from butchers. People and place all smelled alike. He knew only the aristocrats and their houses, which smelled the same, albeit a little stronger.
In light of this terrible turn, he said to himself:
“Something has to be done.”
And so he set about creating fragrances so well balanced that they would restore order to the city; fragrances that complemented, not destroyed, the individuality of people and place. And when he had finished, he asked to meet with the perfumers.
“As I smell it,” said Horace, “your roses were grown for size and not for scent. Your lavender picked too early. The cinnamon, for reasons unknown, mixed with rancid flour. Cheap spirit alcohol has been used. Shall I continue?”
The perfumers stood blinking. Then they erupted into laughter. They laughed until their eyes watered and their stomachs ached. In fact, they only stopped when they caught a whiff of the scent that came from Horace.
“Say! What is that astonishing fragrance?”
“It is my own. Carefully crafted and meticulously balanced.”
“Nonsense! From where did you steal this angelic aroma? Give us the formula. If you don't - why, we’ll pry the scent from your flesh!”
When Horace refused, the perfumers chased him out of the shop, to the gates at the city’s edge. They kept going, and going and - with fear and sadness in his heart - so did Horace.
Horace journeyed far and wide, assembling the ingredients for new types of fragrance. Somewhere along the way, he turned to using components that others did not dare to, and somewhere further he learned to turn poison into perfume.
Years later, a single vial arrived for each of the perfumers. Inside: a perfectly harmonious blend of dark botanics. It was, they say, bottled perfection—a feast for the nose.
Upon taking a whiff, the perfumers sat back in their chairs and said things like, “Goodness!” and “My nostrils have been graced!” and “Depths of emotion I did not think possible!”
They each wept, then laughed, then did both at the same time.
Moments later, they breathed their last.
The shocked public agreed, as one, that something had to be done. However, Horace Meltmoth was not heard from again.
***
Over a hundred years later, I was sitting in the drawing room when torrential rain lashed against the windows of the manor. It was then I thought I saw a man at the glass, his chin raised as though smelling the turbulent air. The rain intensified—and when it cleared, the apparition was gone.
A window began flapping in one of the smaller bedrooms upstairs. Next to it, a locked wardrobe had been opened.
It was here I discovered the journals of Horace Meltmoth, complete with details of his signature fragrances.
You may wonder why I did not throw the journals away, or leave them to rot in that old wardrobe. Why did I instead decide to study them meticulously? For what purpose did I begin recreating Horace’s work with my own hand? And why, for that matter, have I spent these years so fascinated with such forbidden scents?
I ask myself all these questions too.Though I have not yet arrived at a precise answer, I have always known that my distant relative provided me with the greatest gift.
And with it...
Something had to be done.
John Meltmoth, Esq.