Dark Waters (24 page)

‘How did Sir Henry take your warning?'

‘Growled and griped at me, but admitted nothing. So I left him, after I had treated the split lip and the nose, about which he was equally unforthcoming, by the way. I'd looked at his knuckles, and the joke of it is they were abraded. It seemed he really had been boxing.'

I remembered what Elizabeth had been telling me in the early morning.

‘Another gentleman, I hear, has been seen this morning with signs of fist fighting on him.'

‘Yes. As you know, I normally attend the chapel for Sunday Mass, and I saw him. Mr Arne, his name is, and he is half Sir Henry's age. Of course, there is disorder of all kinds at the moment, but I would say if the London musician and the parliamentary candidate had been fighting each other, there's not much doubt who would have come out on top.'

‘But the blow of a fist could not have brought about Sir Harry's other embarrassment.'

‘There have been stranger effects in physiology. But the truth, which I already suspected, is different. See this?'

He brandished the paper on which I had copied Wilson's transactions, then laid it on the desk again. He pointed to the line that read, ‘
Boy pro H.H.? Cnthds pdr. 10 grn.
'

‘That means ten grains of
cantharides
– half a scruple – in powdered form, sold to a representative of a certain H.H. I think we now know who that is.'

‘What's
cantharides?
'

‘Spanish fly, to you, crushed and powdered. It is a powerful irritant to the sexual organs, which is why it is reputed to be aphrodisiacal. But its general effect is less pleasant – not as dangerous as
atropinum,
but if two or three scruples of this were imbibed at once I would expect it to be fatal. What Wilson gave out was less than a mortal dose, but enough to produce the symptoms that I saw in Sir Harry. Indeed, I suspected he had been taking
cantharides
as soon as I saw the urine.'

‘Why?'

‘Because it was streaked with blood.'

‘Did he admit that he'd deliberately tried to stimulate his organ?'

‘Of course not. Kept repeating that he couldn't account for his embarrassment. But this must be what Wilson was telling you in his drunkenness, when he talked about a eunuch, and all that. It was Hoghton.'

‘And what else did he call him? Sir Cocky Cocksman. Was all this for the benefit of Lady Hoghton, do you suppose? It seems unlikely.'

It certainly did. Sir Henry's wife was an austere Presbyterian lady, older than himself. She was rarely seen in Preston.

‘It does, rather,' agreed Fidelis. ‘More likely he anticipated a joust with a younger woman who, he feared, might prove more passionate and demanding than he could manage. Wilson provided him with what he hoped would starch him up.'

‘It did more than that.'

We laughed together, and Fidelis looked happy, and I let go another opportunity to tell him what had passed between me and Miss Plumb. The woman had apparently gone, and I did not want to remind him of her.

Of course, I would later wish that I had.

*   *   *

When we approached the theatre that evening, the mood round about was rowdy. A group of Tories had gathered on one side of the entrance to taunt any Whig supporters as they arrived for the drama. An opposing group had similarly formed on the other side to bait the Tories. And in between were our deputy constables, the Parkin brothers, walking up and down and keeping the two groups apart, their poles of office held horizontally at waist level in the defensive position.

As in all theatres, the main interest for the audience before the play began was – the audience. We sat in our rows passing comments to each other about who was sitting with whom, what on earth young Mrs Skimble was wearing, and whether old Mr Skamble had accidentally dropped his wig in the jakes before coming out. Eventually the curtains across the stage parted for a moment and the slim, tall figure of a man slipped through to face us. The flickering footlights made him look at first sight like an actor, and it took us a moment to realize that this was Lord Strange himself. He waited for us to settle, then spoke out in a clear voice.

‘We beg to present a play of noble sentiments, with uplifting music – written expressly by my very good friend, Mr Thomas Arne, who also undertakes to direct the orchestra. It is the Prince of Wales's best-loved play and it will surely inspire the people of Preston to cast true votes in the interests of our nation. I'll warrant it, or call me a turnip.'

The final touch of bathos raised a general laugh, and a cheer somewhere at the back. Then, to the astonishment of all, His Lordship performed an athletic leap across the orchestra pit, landing in the space in front of the first row of seats where – as our poor theatre does not run to boxes – Lord and Lady Derby, his parents, were sitting, and where a vacant seat was kept for him. The jump itself was graceful, but the landing was not. He came down in front of the plump and bejewelled Lady Pinkleby and pitched forward into her lap with such impetus that, if it had not been for the shield of her fan, her bosom would have received a smack from his face.

The young nobleman disentangled himself from the lady, receiving an even bigger cheer from the rowdy element. He seemed not a bit embarrassed but, smiling and bowing an apology to Lady Pinkleby, raised his arms in a wave to the audience at large, and sat down. He indicated with a hand signal that he was ready and the small orchestra produced the first chords of an overture, the time beaten for them by a smartly dressed man of about thirty – Mr Arne. Since his back was towards us, I could not see the bruised eye socket.

As soon as the overture had played itself out the curtain opened on the scene: a long-ago England, in the course of being conquered by a heathen army of Danes. At the centre of the stage stood an ancient oak tree beneath which, huddled under a blanket, lay the fugitive, ragged, all-but-defeated King Alfred, waking from an exhausted sleep. A chorus of spirits now appeared to the sound of solemn strains. ‘
What proves the hero truly great,
' they sang, ‘
is never, never to despair.
'

The words braced Alfred, even though the ill fortunes of war had cruelly separated him from his loving wife, Eltruda. He was further braced by the appearance of a sort of philosopher–hermit, perhaps domiciled in a neighbouring cave, who began to conjure visions of Alfred's great successors, although, paradoxically, they were figures out of history to the present audience: King Edward III, Queen Bess and King William of Orange.

Alfred was braced by these exemplars tighter than a lady's stays. He swore by God to cast out flatterers and be the common father of his people, a patriot king. Men naturally take from art what pleases them, so the jibe about flatterers sailed unrecognized past the government's supporters: they were busy gloating at the impossibility of patriotism in the skulking family of Stuarts. At the same time their opponents heard only the denunciation of flatterers, and thought how they hated ‘Robbing' Walpole.

I feared that Miss Colley, full of hope for ghosts and violent sword fights, would be disappointed by the play. I looked around but could not see her, though I did catch the eye of Luke Fidelis in the row behind ours. He swivelled up his eyes and discreetly tapped his mouth with a flat hand.

Then something happened to shake him out of his boredom. Onstage, Alfred cupped his ear, saying, ‘But hark! Methinks I hear a plaintive voice.'

The orchestra struck up once more, and we all heard it: a weird, wavering soprano drifting over us from somewhere off the stage:

Sweet valley say where, pensive lying,

For me, our children, England sighing,

The best of mortals leans his head!

As his ear caught the sound, the best of mortals at once adopted an attitude of amazement, and no wonder for, trilling fervently, a young woman now edged onto the stage – a palpably lovely young woman, dressed in a gown of red silk, with her golden hair crowned by a chaplet of wild red roses.

I blinked. Probably my mouth fell open. This was undoubtedly Alfred's great love, the beautiful Queen Eltruda. But it was also, and even more incontrovertibly, my friend Fidelis's great love, Miss Lysistrata Plumb.

Whispers rustled through the stalls as the song unfolded, with the men in the audience marvelling sotto voce at the singer's charm. Her voice was highly distinctive – ethereal at the high end, breathy and corporeal in the lower notes. I could hardly imagine what Fidelis's thoughts must have been at the idea of Miss Plumb – Lysistrata – exposing herself onstage. It rather contradicted his image of her as an angel to the angels, for actors and actresses are certainly not angels. Their whole purpose is to deceive – not to be what they seem, or to seem what they are not – which is not too far from being a professional immoralist like Richard Andrews, though with the important difference that we disparage him and applaud them. I looked around to see my friend's reaction to the reappearance of his guiding star. He had turned as white as a goose feather.

Alfred was even further invigorated by his reunion with Eltruda. In life, people can reach this conjugation of the spiritual and the sensual only in fleeting moments of bliss; in the drama, on the other hand, they regularly achieve it, with the understanding that after fall of the curtain bliss will prolong into eternity. The play
Alfred
was now beginning to rise and sweep like an ocean wave towards just such a finale. As our protagonist's love for his wife is fulsomely reaffirmed, so his political rhetoric swells. Alfred's previously wan hopes of defeating the pagan Dane now wax and harden in a heroic final speech, passionately foretelling the triumph of liberty and safety across a land guarded by the deterrent power of Britannia's navies. He promises an end to lawless roads, and a new age of learning and the arts, ‘
whose humanizing Power / tames the wild Breast, the injurious Hand restrains / and gives vagrant Lust to taste the matchless Joys / of Kindred, Love and sweet domestic Bliss
'. The poetry was bad, but I admired the sentiments. They had nothing of the sordid lubricity of the Whig merchants' ‘free' trade, or the brutishness of so many Tories; they painted instead a picture of laws passed with liberal consent, wise judgement by our peers, and an absence of dread throughout the land.

When the speech was finished, Mr Arne struck up his band once more, and Alfred launched into a closing song – and such a song! With its memorable tune and stirring words, I admit I had never heard the like before:

When Britain first at heaven's command

Arose from out the azure main …

I think I speak for most of the audience that heard it. As we listened we felt alternately the heat of emotion and the chill of the sublime and, upon each stirring repetition of the song's chorus of ‘Rule Britannia!' – famous later but until that night unheard at Preston – the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Mr Arne may have seemed like a dandy with a predilection for fisticuffs, but in reality he was a musician with a genius rare enough to rival Mr Handel's own. His glorious song had me believing, for a few minutes at least, that all the paradisial promises we had earlier heard Alfred make could be kept after all. The wild applause, whistles and calls for its repetition – it was heard three times and might have gone three more before we'd had enough – told me that most of the theatre felt much the same.

When the performance was done at last, several dozen select members of the audience crossed the road to the Lamb and Flag Inn and climbed to the long upstairs room for supper. This was by special invitation of Lord Strange – though, I would guess, at his father's expense. The seating was free-for-all and I found Elizabeth a place on one of the ladies' tables, before crossing the room to find a vacancy among the men for myself. At one of the men's tables I saw Fidelis sitting with a group that included Nick Oldswick. But, there being no spare place, I looked around the other tables and saw one beside the hunched figure of Thomas Wilson. It seemed an opportunity too good to pass up, and I sat down there at once.

The apothecary did not look happy. He played moodily with his glass of wine more than he drank from it, and seemed to have scant appetite. He was one of the few to have taken a sour dislike to
Alfred,
with particular reference to its connection with Prince Frederick.

‘Prince Fred's favourite play? No wonder it is. I bet he's rumpled every girl in the theatre company and especially the beauty in the red dress. Prince of Quails, I call him. They talk about him being spit-polished up to be the Great Patriot King when his turn comes. King Alfrederick? Yes, and my arse wears boots. He's a useful dupe, Cragg, and I mean that with the greatest respect for the House of Hanover. I receive papers from London from time to time and they tell me Fred has a toadying group of lords around him, who encourage him to hate his father the king, and egg him on to conspire at every turn against Sir Robert. Well, that's the last thing our country needs, with the French king building barges and kitting out men to invade us, and the Spanish king putting ever more guns on the water to blast our navy off it. Our only safety is in prudent finances, and a standing army, not bleating about law and citizen juries.'

‘You express yourself strongly. You will be casting your vote for Hoghton and Reynolds, I take it.'

‘I have always been against the Tories, me. A Whig to the core, like my old dad. That's why I don't like to hear this blatant politicking in plays. That speech at the end was not dramatic, it was a Tory electioneering rant.'

‘But if it had been a rant in praise of Sir Robert…?'

Wilson widened his eyes and thumped the table.

‘No, no! That is my point, Cragg. The Whig party does not indulge in such canting tricks as to dress up a political meeting as a play. But the Tories, now! You would put nothing past them.'