The Scandal of the Season (16 page)

“Do you recall that Lord Petre's former guardian, your friend John Caryll, retrieved an estate confiscated from his uncle?” Martha asked.

“I was speaking of it to Jervas only yesterday,” he answered. “But it had nothing to do with the Petres.”

“That is not so,” she said. “Old Lord Caryll had been imprisoned for trying to defend five Catholic lords arrested in the Popish Plot. They were all to be tried together, and likely beheaded. Do you recall the names of the other lords who were imprisoned?”

Alexander shook his head. That Martha had never let on until now!

“Lords Stafford, Powis, Arundell, Bellasyse, and Petre,” she said.

“Petre!” he echoed. “Lord Petre?”

“The present baron's grandfather. He died in the Tower, a known traitor. The Petres bear the black mark upon their names, just as the Carylls do.”

“So the Petres are Jacobites.”

“
Were
Jacobites, Alexander,” she corrected.

Alexander was arrested by a series of thoughts. “But I begin to understand—Lord Petre is constantly with that man James Douglass, yet I do not believe that they are friends. They are of such opposing manners; from such different families. But I saw them in secret after the ball; they were hiding together in an empty carriage.”

Martha laughed. “I do not understand a word of what you are saying, Alexander.”

“I do not understand it myself, Patty. Whenever I see Douglass, he gives the appearance of being underhand, of having always something to conceal. But until this moment I could not fathom Lord Petre's involvement.”

“Alexander, I cannot follow you.”

“What if their friendship were founded upon political self-interest? Suppose that it were a matter of treason? A secret indeed,” he said.

“Alexander! You are being ridiculous,” Martha exclaimed. “You let your jealousy of Lord Petre encourage you to the most preposterous fancies.” She paused, regretting her choice of word. Collecting herself, she added in a calmer voice, “Even supposing that this talk of secret meetings were true, which I do not believe, think what would happen if he were to be exposed. The family would lose everything; Lord Petre would be imprisoned, and probably executed. It is impossible!”

She broke off, and the pair of them sat in silence for a moment.

“Have you told Teresa about Lord Petre's family?” he asked. “Perhaps you should do so.”

As she watched him, Martha felt a wave of sympathy. How well she understood his feelings—his desire to discourage the affection for Lord Petre that Teresa seemed to bestow so unfairly. Was that what this whole exchange had been about? What a temptation it must be to reveal that Teresa's admirer, Douglass, was a blackguard, and her favorite, the baron, a traitor!

With a sigh, she replied, “I am sure that your suspicions are unfounded—Lord Petre is not a traitor. In any case, I do not think such advice would dissuade Teresa, and she might well tell him about it in an attempt to gain his attention. I believe that you must keep your speculations to yourself.”

Alexander looked abashed as she spoke. Supposing she was right, he reflected ruefully. Perhaps it was jealousy that made him so curious about Lord Petre's business with Douglass. When he compared his wild speculations to Martha's real penetration, he was embarrassed.

“You understand your sister well, Patty,” he said. “And how thoroughly I suspect you understand me. I shall say nothing to her. Instead I promise to watch over her like a guardian sylph in romance, protecting her from harm as she faces the tribulations of the fashionable world.”

“In that guise you shall soon enough be occupied,” Martha answered in an ironic tone. “Teresa is to go to the opera tonight, an event well attended by the society of which you speak, drawn up magnificently in lace, brocade waistcoats, and sword knots. She is not likely to appear well fortified in comparison.”

T
hat evening hundreds of people were gathered outside the theater in the Haymarket, jostling to get inside. A jam of carriages and sedan chairs had accumulated at either end of the street, and ladies picked through the dung and straw in their silk slippers to reach the theater. A fur tippet fell to the ground, and a lady's footman struggled with the filthy street urchin who darted in to steal it. Chair carriers battled to deposit their passengers under the arcade of the building, ramming the carrying poles into the backs of unsuspecting theatergoers. A hog-man, not knowing or not caring that it was an opera night, turned into the street with a snorting, scuffling pack who smeared their flanks across the ladies' fronts, ruining silk stockings with each kick of their muddy trotters.

At the doors of the building the attendants, liveried in scarlet since it was the Queen's Theatre, bumped against the oncoming crowd, shouting at them that no food or drink could be brought in. Orange sellers stood beside them, hawking rotten fruit for the gallery to throw onstage when the pace began to flag. Two men stood before the doors and called,
“No arms to be worn in the theater! Gentlemen to leave all swords outside!”
—and were roundly ignored. With much bell ringing and yet more shouting, the firemen's carriage arrived with engines full of water in case the lights set fire to the stage during the performance.

Alexander and Jervas had come to the theater in a hackney carriage. Jervas had not only forgiven Alexander for his outburst the day before but seemed indeed to have forgotten it altogether, and they were walking together affably, getting along better now than they had done since he came to town. They arrived just as Richard Steele did, and Alexander greeted him energetically, hoping that he would be disposed to talk.

“Can't abide the Italian opera,” Steele began as he led Alexander up the stairs toward the men's box. “Why do so many people turn out for an evening in which the understanding can play no part in their pleasure?”

Alexander laughed. His friend was obviously in a good mood. “That nobody can make sense of it is an opera's first recommendation,” he replied wryly. “It frees the audience from all constraint. Whether they have attended or not attended, the conversation afterward will be just the same. This is true of every public entertainment, of course—but the Italian opera, which is entirely formed of nonsense, suits the fashionable world the best of all.”

“There would be no opera at all without the fashionable world,” Steele said, putting his hand on Alexander's shoulder and looking back to wave to an acquaintance farther down the stairs. “Were the nobility not clamoring to pay a guinea apiece to show off their finery in the superior illumination of theatrical lighting, this Mr. Handel would doubtless still be giving organ lessons in Germany.”

Alexander laughed again and asked, “If you dislike the opera, Mr. Steele, why do you come?”

“For our readers, Pope, our readers,” he said with a sigh. “We must tell them about it so that even those who have not attended at all may join the conversation afterward in confident voice.”

Alexander had bought a copy of the opera book that day in Covent Garden, and he flipped through its pages while he and Steele settled themselves. He wondered where Jervas had got to—he always knew everybody at these outings—he must still be at the bottom of the stairs. “Even if they do play the work in English,” Alexander observed to Steele, “it will be no more comprehensible, for I see that the libretto is by Aaron Hill.”

“Yes. Hill has no talent whatsoever for making himself understood,” Steele assented. “A shame, for he might otherwise write well. Might I see the book?”

Alexander handed it over, and Steele perused it.

After a minute or two he chortled with amusement. “Mr. Hill tells us in his preface that he wishes for a drama to display the excellence of the music and ‘to fill the eye with more delightful Prospects, so as to give Two Senses equal pleasure,'” he said. “Which two senses do you think Hill has in his mind?”

“Not the same as the two I have in mine,” Alexander replied. “But since he is the manager of this theater, there is one very delightful prospect that must stimulate him to continually higher efforts: that of being one day able to claim credit for somebody else's dramatic talents.”

“But Mr. Hill is in charge no longer,” Steele said with relish, delighted to find someone to whom he could impart the news of the theater manager's demise. “Did not you hear? He has been suspended since the beginning of this month—the set builders were not being paid, and there was an outcry after the episode with the birds.”

“Birds?” Alexander echoed. “I heard nothing of it.” He wondered how Steele actually came by his information. Perhaps people came to him with gossip, hoping that he would write about them in his periodical.

“It was a
most
diverting episode for those of us who would prefer to see the Italian opera make a triumphal return to its native land,” Steele explained. “Some weeks ago I was in Covent Garden with Joseph Addison, when we saw a boy walking along with a great cage of sparrows. Addison, with whom you are yet to be acquainted, asked him where he was going with them, and the boy informed us that they were for the opera. ‘For the opera?' said I. ‘What, are they to be roasted?' thinking that at last Hill had stumbled upon an idea that would make him some money. But no! The boy replied that the sparrows were to enter the stage after the first act.”

Alexander bowed, sensing that Steele's story was building to a climax.

“You might imagine my astonishment upon hearing the news. But my surprise was nothing compared to that of the ladies in the audience when they found that the birds were, by the third act, already making nests in their headdresses. There was yet more confusion the following night, for the sparrows did not seem to understand Mr. Hill's telling them that it was a different play. They continued to make entrances at very improper moments, putting out the candles as they flew about, and causing great inconvenience to the heads of the audience. In the end I think we can conclude that it was the sparrows who beheld a delightful prospect, and Mr. Hill who was roasted.”

By the time Steele reached his punch line the box was nearly filled with operagoers, and there was hearty laughter at the conclusion of the tale. Amid the bustle of people arriving and sitting down, Alexander saw that Jervas had appeared with a large crowd of friends and acquaintances. Lord Petre, Robert Harley, and Jonathan Swift were all gathered around him, as well as a friend of Swift's whom Alexander knew only by sight from the coffeehouses. Steele stepped directly up to Chief Minister Harley and introduced himself. Lord Petre hastened to the front of the box and began looking out into the audience, paying little attention to what was passing among his friends.

The opera had already begun, but the fact had very little impact upon most of the audience, who continued to talk and walk around just as before. Jervas rejoined Alexander, taking up position in Steele's old seat.

“Dear me,” said Jervas, looking over the edge of the box. “What a sound they are making down there. 'Tis hard to know which noises are writ by Mr. Handel for his drums and cannon, and which rendered by Mr. Hill's assistants as they drop the scenery backstage.”

“It makes no difference to the audience, so long as they can take snuff, smoke, and stare at the ladies' boxes,” Alexander replied. “Presumably it does make some difference to Mr. Handel, who I can only hope is not present to witness the scene.”

“I rather regret that I have the advantage of Mr. Hill's play-book,” Steele said, returning to his perusal of the performance. “I am promised here that the King of Jerusalem is to be drawn in a triumphant chariot by a team of white horses. Yet it is perfectly plain from the scene now going on that he is obliged to arrive from the city on foot.”

Alexander stood up to look at the stage, and decided to try to work himself around to near where Dr. Swift was standing, hoping that he would at last have a chance to meet the famous clergyman. He longed to tell him how much he had admired
A Tale of a Tub,
but feared that Swift might think him gauche. Perhaps he should talk instead about the opera. The renowned Italian castrato Nicolini was presently making a sedate crossing of the stage in a pasteboard boat, singing of violent tempests in both heart and mind. Swift was looking over the side of the box, a disdainful expression upon his face, and Alexander moved to stand beside him for a few minutes, pretending to watch the performance. As Mr. Handel's music reached a crescendo, Dr. Swift let out a cry of irritation. Alexander saw it as his chance.

“Do you not admire the entertainment?” he asked.

Swift answered him without hesitation, not seeming to care, or perhaps even to remember, that they had never been introduced. “My enjoyment is overthrown by the sight of my fellow clergymen, sitting in the front row of the theater with the music open on their knees,” he said, pointing down scornfully at a little group of clerics sitting below. “Behold them there, posturing as men of judgment and refinement. They watch with such a serious air, as though it were only by nodding and beating time with one's fingers that a person could show himself able to listen to music. I should think them funny, were not their vanity so wretchedly on display. Instead they fill me with a savage indignation.”

Alexander was so surprised by Swift's outburst that he forgot to be guarded in his answer.

“But why should their indignity turn
you
savage?” he asked.

Swift stopped abruptly to look keenly at the young man beside him.

“I do not believe that I know your name, sir,” he said.

Alexander faltered, and looked around anxiously to make sure that no one had seen him speak to Swift out of turn.

“My name is Alexander Pope, sir,” he replied.

“I heard of you some time ago, Mr. Pope,” Swift said, “and it made me curious. I was told that you write poetry.”

Pope blushed and mumbled, “Hardly! A few verses; only one of them printed.” He looked down at his feet. Then, cursing himself for almost throwing away an opportunity such as this, added, “I do have another poem coming out very shortly, sir. Next month, I hope.” He hesitated again, fearing that he would seem to be showing off, or begging some favor from the more famous writer. It must have been Steele who described him to Swift, Alexander speculated.

But Swift resumed their conversation about the clergymen below. “You pose an excellent question,” he said thoughtfully. “Why
do
those men affect me? I suppose because their indignity is a reminder of a still greater loss of dignity in myself. I stoop to be among them; like those paltry parsons with their music, I flatter and bow and scrape, seeking preferment that I do not really desire. And rather than turn away from the Church, I resort to despising my fellows. I become savage, sir, when I see that I cannot escape my own ill nature.”

Alexander listened with an expression of wonder, even of delight, as he spoke. Swift's words reminded him of his own outburst at Jervas. “I believe that I understand you, Dr. Swift,” he cried, meeting the clergyman's eye. “I, too, am beginning to perceive the consequences of belonging to a profession in which one feels entirely at odds with all fellow practitioners.”

Swift met his speech with a corresponding energy. “We are all of us vain—but if a man would be proud, I wish he would swagger about as though he were ten times the size of his fellows, peering at them through a glass. This at least would justly represent his feelings of superiority. But these fellows show their vanity through the pains they take in reading and study. It is intolerable pretense.”

Alexander said, hoping that he would not sound ridiculous, “You must be every day reminded, Dr. Swift, of how very different the path that you tread is from that of your fellow-travelers. But so does orthodoxy beget heresy.”

“Tell me sir: Are you a conformist in point of religion?”

Alexander was surprised by the question—he had not expected Swift to raise the subject of religion when he must know he was a Catholic. Steele would hardly have omitted that detail. He resolved to answer as lightly as he could. “My family are pious,” he said, “and when I am with them they say so many prayers that I can make but few poems. I call myself an occasional conformist. As I am drunk and scandalous to suit my company in town, I am grave and godly at home, for the same reason.” He tried not to laugh at his own joke, but it slipped out nonetheless.

Swift was laughing, too, and did not notice it. “You are witty, Mr. Pope. My Lord Petre told me that you are no satirist, but I believe that he was in error.”

“I shall not correct him,” Alexander replied, interested to hear that Lord Petre had spoken of him at all. So it had not been Steele. He noticed that they were being overheard by a third party. It was Swift's friend, the short, chubby fellow, whom Swift introduced as John Gay.

“I know that you are a scribbler, Mr. Pope,” Gay said. “I have read your verses, and admired them exceedingly.”

“Mr. Pope should more properly be called a poet than a scribbler,” Swift corrected him. “He has learning, and will one day write an epic in the manner of Virgil.”