The Scandal of the Season (36 page)

“I am very pleased that you have brought the book to give to me today,” she answered. “But your visit to Whiteknights is almost as precious to me as the verses themselves.”

“It should be more so, Patty,” he said. “The postage would have cost me twice as much as the book. If Lintot is making his fortune from this venture, he will most certainly not make mine. But even if
The Rape of the Lock
is wearisome to you, you will enjoy the other poems in the
Miscellany,
which are said to contain passages that a lady may not look upon without being in danger of blushing.”

“Well, I blush rather easily, Alexander, as you know,” Martha replied, suiting the action to the word as she spoke.

He replied in a grave voice, but with a smile that would show he was speaking lightly. “Since blushing becomes you better than any lady in England,” he said, “I shall be the party in much more serious danger, merely from looking at you. There: now I have made you blush still further, and our troubles begin again.”

She laughed. “Alexander!” she exclaimed. “I shall have to forbid your visits here if you come only to flatter and flirt with me. If it is so pleasant to be at home, I shall never have a reason to go out—and then what will become of my prospects?”

Alexander liked this new Martha altogether, as much improved in spirits as in looks, and he gazed at her affectionately. “What will become of your prospects indeed?” he echoed. “Very well! In the future I shall make myself so disagreeable when I visit that you will want to leave the house immediately. And I shall visit so often that you will always be out to me when I call. The arrangement will work admirably.” He hesitated ever so slightly before going on. But then he smiled and said, “Indeed, people will think us just like a married couple.”

Martha looked down.

His face became serious and he said, “I shall come to visit you again very soon, dear Patty. And will you give my affectionate regards to your sister? I hope that she is well.”

Martha heard the earnestness in Alexander's tone, and she came to a halt, motioning for them to sit down on a nearby bench. She had expected Alexander to ask about Teresa long before now, though she had been pleased when he did not. But she had privately determined that she would answer any questions about her sister without sounding awkward or disappointed.

“I have seldom seen her better,” she said. And then, with a wry inflection, she added, “For the first time in her life, she has the advantage over Arabella. Indeed I believe that Teresa is now pleased to have been so much overlooked by Lord Petre. She can claim to have seen through him from the very beginning, and to have understood exactly the kind of man he was.” Martha paused, and then gave a little laugh. “Which I suppose, after a fashion, she did,” she added.

They were silent for a moment, and then Alexander said, “I hope that you will give Teresa my love when next you write to her, and that she will receive it without disgust.”

Martha looked down at her lap again, and said nothing. Alexander noticed her confused expression, and got up from the bench to stand before her.

“Patty, I want you to know that you have at last gained the conquest over your fair sister,” he said with a smile. “It is true: you may not be considered as handsome,” he continued, “but only because you are a woman so you
think
that you are not. Your good humor and understanding have for me a charm that cannot be resisted. Now! You have gone quite scarlet again, and I am in the gravest danger of blushing myself!”

He held out his hand to her, and she stood up to take his arm. They turned toward the house once again, and each lifted a hand to wave to Sir Anthony, who stood on the yew terrace, watching as they approached.

A
lexander's poem was a huge success. In coffeehouses and salons and at balls across London, everybody talked about
The Rape of the Lock
and its brilliant author. But he was not satisfied. The more he thought about the poem and its subject, the more he wished that he had written a longer piece, reaching beyond the facts of the story to satisfy the full scope of his ambitions. The first edition was so popular that he thought Lintot would print a second, and he decided that it ought to be twice as long, published separately in a volume of its own. He began work on it, but the new verses took him a long time to write, and it was nearly two years after the day at Hampton Palace that Alexander arrived in Button's coffeehouse in London to read them aloud. Button's was owned by Steele's collaborator, Joseph Addison, and Alexander hoped that a good audience at the reading would remind Addison of his promise to advertise his new poem in the pages of the
Spectator.

When he reached the coffeehouse on the afternoon of the reading a large crowd had already gathered. Among them he saw Richard Steele sitting with John Gay and Jonathan Swift. He found that he recognized nearly all the other men in the room, too, and he was aware of being spoken about in lowered tones. With feelings of pride, and a self-consciousness that he could not quite keep in check, he walked directly up to his group of friends.

John Gay saluted him loudly. “He is come! Pope is here!”

Richard Steele likewise sprang to his feet, crying, “My dear fellow, you are in excellent health, I see. I am in the gout once again and suffer mightily, but it will pass soon enough!”

Swift was on his feet, too, shaking him by the hand and pulling him on to a chair; Addison was rushing up to offer him refreshment. He could see the poets Ambrose Philips and Thomas Tickell on the other side of the coffeehouse, sitting with his former mentor William Wycherley. He crossed the room to greet them, and noticed that Wycherley looked dour, but Philips and Tickell jumped up to wring Alexander's hand.

“You are being named as the genius of our age,” Philips said with unstinting warmth. “The idea for your poem was brilliant, and every day I wish that I had thought of it—but then I wager that there isn't a man in this room who hasn't had the same wish cross his mind.”

Alexander turned to Wycherley, and shook him by the hand. “A very lively satire, sir,” Wycherley said to him. “And just the thing for the modern age. Twenty years ago it would not have been understood, but we have paved the way for you.” Alexander was not particularly surprised by the mean-spiritedness of Wycherley's response, but he saw that the other two fellows looked embarrassed. He was about to extricate himself from the group when a new gentleman, about the same age as himself, came up with a friendly smile. Alexander recognized him as Edward Young, a good-hearted fellow, though of a nervous disposition. Alexander had heard that Young was given to bouts of frenzied high spirits, followed by interludes of impenetrable gloom. He knew that Young longed to be a poet. Alexander shook him by the hand.

“You have written such a lively, spirited piece,” Young exclaimed. “So easy; so full of wit and merit. I admire you and I envy you, sir—in equal parts.” He laughed so generously that Alexander could not be in the least affronted.

“I do thank you, sir,” he replied. “Your own poems progress well, I hope.”

“I have lately written a piece on the death of Lady Jane Grey,” he replied. “It is very grand and melancholy, but I fear that it will not please. Something with more humor in it would serve me better. Perhaps I shall try a satire. Yet I seem to be more suited to somber strains.”

“People love to be made sad as much as they like to laugh,” Pope replied. “If they are smiling this week, they will want to weep the next. Keep your melancholy thoughts, Young. Their time will come.”

When Alexander returned to his own table, Swift beckoned him to sit down at his side. “The new version is a masterpiece,” he said, making Alexander's heart swell as he continued, “You will doubtless know that I have a reputation for disliking all of mankind. But in your case my renown will serve a purpose: when I tell you that you are a man of genius, you are more likely to believe me.” He paused as Alexander laughed at his praise, and then asked, “Why did you call Miss Fermor by the name of Belinda in the poem?”

“I thought that I should conceal her identity,” Alexander answered, “though I have not done so very strenuously, since Miss Fermor's friends all call her ‘Bell.' The name is my own invention, but I hope that it may catch on,” he said with a self-deprecating gesture.

“I have seen the real Miss Fermor but once, and I do not recall whether she enjoyed as great a share of beauty as your Belinda.”

“She is exceptionally handsome,” Alexander replied. “And yet I did always feel that her hair, for which she has been envied, was rather too luxuriant.”

“Then posterity will credit you with correcting the only fault Miss Fermor ever had, by giving her a haircut,” Swift answered. “Who would have thought a lock of hair could have so much satire in it?

“There is but one objection that I would expect to be raised to your new verses. People will want to know how you came by the details of the story. You hint at an affair between your hero and heroine; you give the suggestion that Jacobite strife was involved in the intrigue—readers will ask how you can be sure of your facts. I have always found that it is a dangerous thing for a writer to dabble in the truth; it supplies people with an excuse to say that you are in error.”

Alexander had given a good deal of thought to this, and he had an answer ready to give his friend. “Oh! I hope that nobody should think my poem true
in point of fact,
” he said lightly. “Truth is but a frail and sickly creature, and soon forgotten. After all, Arabella Fermor's beauty will fade, and the present Lord Petre shall be the baron only for a little while. The Jacobites will carry on with their plans for rebellion, and who knows who will succeed the present Queen? Although my poem may not be strictly true, I hope that it might prove a more—how shall I say it—a more
enduring
record. After all, nobody really cares for the truth, do they, Dr. Swift?”

“Do you know, Pope, I believe that you are right,” Swift said, shaking his head. “The trouble with the truth is that it always brings such bitter disappointments.”

As Alexander and Swift came to the end of this exchange, a gentleman sitting close to them could be overheard reciting the closing couplet of
The Rape of the Lock,
followed by a loud hurrah from himself and his friends.

“This Lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame, / And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name!”

This caused another group of fellows to propose a toast to “Belinda and the baron—the romantic heroes of the modern age.”

Alexander watched as Richard Steele leaned confidentially across to one of them, and said, “You should more properly be toasting Miss Arabella Fermor than Belinda.”

Though Alexander attempted to silence Steele's indiscretion, the youth turned toward his friend. “Arabella Fermor?” he repeated. “Who is she?”

“How should I know?” the friend said. “Another lady, I suppose.”

Then he, too, turned to address his companion. “Who is Arabella Fermor?” he asked.

“Never heard of her,” the young man replied callously, drinking from his mug of ale. “Do you know of a lady called Arabella Fermor?” he asked another man in the party.

“Farmer?” the friend echoed. “No—is she a real person?”

“Who knows?” he replied with a laugh. “In any case, a toast to Belinda—the most beautiful girl in London—and the poet who created her.”

Steele was about to cut in and correct them, but Alexander motioned to him to be quiet.

“Arabella could not be London's reigning belle forever,” he said merrily, with a chuckle. “Let Belinda have her day.”

As Alexander stood up to begin reading he felt a wave of anticipation sweep through the room. Everybody was watching him: some of them admiringly, others enviously; some affectionately, others coldly. What a great variety of men were to be met with here, he reflected. What a cruel world this was, and how brief was each man's moment of celebrity. Who, from this motley band, would be remembered?

But suddenly he felt a surge of excitement. As much as he disdained Grub Street, he saw that it was a new world, yet to be explored. The people who inhabited it—the publishers, the editors, the printers—were new men, and the activities in which they engaged were new, too: the buying and selling of books, the printing of newspapers, the raising up and dragging down of writers and critics and essayists. It would call for a steady head and nerves of iron to succeed, but the prospect was bracing.

All around him the room fell silent and attentive as they quieted their babble. He began to read the opening lines of his poem:

He glanced up, and saw that they were watching him entranced. Not a breath could be heard besides his own voice. Everybody was spellbound, and a wild rush of exhilaration overcame him. He had done it, he thought—he had written a poem that would make him the most famous poet in England.