The Skull and the Nightingale (35 page)

More recently Mr. Hurlock paid me an unexpected visit. I saw that he was the worse for drink: he moved unsteadily and his face was blotched. For a moment I wondered whether he had learned of the thorough plundering his wife had enjoyed at your hands. It quickly emerged, however, that he had called on financial business. His affairs now being in an even worse state than I had thought, he was asking for more time in which to pay the considerable sum he owes me. Having allowed him more than one such extension in the past, I said that I could not grant his request: he would have to yield to me the portion of his estate (adjacent to mine) which he had pledged against the debt. When his pleas proved vain he became heated and finally abusive. I rose and told him our conference was at an end. He hulked himself to his feet, turning toward the door, but then, in a fit of fury, lurched round and threw himself upon me, seizing me by the throat. Hector, who had been asleep in a corner, roused himself on the instant and fastened his teeth on Hurlock’s leg. As the pitiful blockhead sprawled cursing on the floor two of my servants rushed in, disturbed by the commotion.

I was content to hush the matter up. The servants were sworn to secrecy. Hurlock’s leg, by now bleeding profusely, was bandaged. The shock had sobered him: he blubbered abject apologies, which, given that I had been left a little bruised, I accepted with good grace.

Years ago he was the principal bully of this part of the county. Now within weeks I had seen him first cuckolded and then routed—and he owes me a large tract of land. My triumph over him may be seen as a vindication of detachment and rationality. But I am no such hypocrite that I cannot see an inconsistency when I speak (or think) of “triumph.” Perhaps I have not transcended Hurlock’s wretched standards, but stooped to them.

This transference of land can be carried through unobtrusively. I would not wish it to damage my reputation or even that of Hurlock. It is unfortunate for him that his essential pleasures—eating, drinking, and hunting—are expensive ones. By contrast Yardley might live in a prison cell with equanimity, if he had but a mole or a magpie for company. With judicious retrenchment Hurlock can maintain his bottle and his horse, although he may soon need to be tied into the saddle.

I mention this episode to imply my sympathy for your instinctive, and physical, aversion to Ogden. After all the body has a voice of its own. In seducing his wife, you will enjoy the simultaneous pleasure of humbling a repellent antagonist.

Mr. Crocker’s masquerade would seem propitious to your hopes. So, too, does a letter I received this very morning. Lord Downs writes that he is to employ Ogden to assist in the renovation of his house. He found him “a queer, glum devil,” but thinks him a man of ability. I believe you would concur in both these opinions concerning the man you plan to cuckold.

I remain, &c.

* * *

My dear Godfather,

Do not the inconsistencies of Clarissa run deeper than you allow? Richardson lauds the chastity of his heroine, yet plainly the true source of interest for him, as for his readers, is the prospect of her ravishment. As you suggest, no male reader of that novel will ever have felt drawn to emulate Hickman. But many will have wished themselves in Lovelace’s position. It seems that, however lofty our doctrines, humankind has an irrepressible relish for fleshly dealings.

Moving in London society as I do—thanks to your generosity—I can only concur with your observations concerning the extent to which the human body, both male and female, is presently bedecked and even deformed. Perfume may mask odor and paint hide dirt. Many a bedroom candle is hastily snuffed to forestall a disagreeable revelation before invisibly naked animals couple in darkness.

I hasten to add that Sarah Ogden’s attractions are happily unambiguous. Her cheeks, her hair, her eyes are alive with their natural colors. Her waist requires no confinement from corsetry. Having known her as a girl, I have been enabled, in contrast to Mr. Hickman, to count her small feet, to the number of two, and even discern, through light skirts, the outlines of her graceful legs. At the animal level I have all the stimulus I could wish.

I was able to contrive a further conversation with Mrs. Ogden while her husband was away. Let me give you an account of that meeting.

Here I transcribed the relevant parts of the narrative earlier provided, save only for a little judicious pruning, and in particular the omission of any of our references to Mr. Gilbert.

I was at first dismayed by Sarah’s asperity. However, I infer that this manner is adopted by conscious effort, as a kind of self-defense. Moreover she did not long sustain this mood: I was able to restore her to good humor. Because we conversed easily when children, it comes naturally to us to do so once more. When in that vein, she perhaps disclosed more than she was aware. I inferred that she feels an absence in her life, a need for novelty and excitement. I have reappeared at the right time.

You mentioned Mrs. Jennings. When I met her again recently I found her often arch and provocative in manner, as she must have been when young. There is no harm, of course, in such jesting, as it now is: this is a conversational style, and to be taken as such. Yet I feel that, having been a lusty creature in her day, she makes such sallies through a survival of animal instinct. Perhaps in the same way some sagging female elephant or withered vixen will feebly parody the gestures of mating even till her dying day.

The immediate bearing of my observation is that I sense, in Sarah Ogden, a version of such an instinct. Our conversation came to have a tincture of unspoken dalliance. She does not deliberately provoke, as Mrs. Jennings does, but she resorts to a rallying tone that is similar in effect and can tend toward indiscretion.

Any such process, of course, will depend upon time and opportunity. I am pleased to hear that Mr. Ogden’s services are to be required in Worcestershire. If all goes well his wife will not be lonely in his absence.

What you report of Mr. Hurlock I find extraordinary. Drink, debt, and stupidity must have undone the poor devil completely. He was fortunate not to have fared worse. Whatever occasional doubts you may have had about your own course of life, you cannot for a moment have wished to be a Hurlock. Your thoughts easily encompass all he has done or wished for; his understanding could not begin to comprehend the workings of your own. In short, your habit of rationality can see, and can then make good, any suspected limitation; Hurlock’s materialism is doomed to stupidity because it cannot see beyond itself.

This letter has been largely speculative. I hope that my next one will revert to actions. It will record the humors of Crocker’s masquerade, which will number both Sarah and Kitty among the guests.

I remain, &c.

A note was delivered to Cathcart Street when I was away:

Mr. Joseph Ward sends his compliments and hopes that Mr. Fenwick will be able to find time to visit him at his office on a matter of personal concern.

I “found time” the next morning, and was led into a small sanctum I had never entered before. It was impossible to judge the gravity of the occasion from Mr. Ward’s expression, since he never looks other than grave.

“Is this your confessional, Mr. Ward?” I asked, to lighten the atmosphere.

He looked at me with a bleak eye.

“I have no such priestly powers, Mr. Fenwick. The case is this: I have heard a report which caused me concern, and I would value your opinion on it, if you care to offer one.”

“Try me, Mr. Ward.”

He drew a long breath through his nostrils.

“I learn from Mrs. Quentin that Mr. Hurlock attacked your godfather and was in consequence savaged by his dog.”

“How did Mrs. Quentin know this?”

“She was told by Mrs. Hurlock.”

“I can confirm the story. My godfather described the episode in his latest letter. He did not want it noised abroad.”

“Nor will it be. Mr. Hurlock can have no interest in repeating it, since he was plainly in the wrong. But he could not hide his injuries from his wife.”

“Did she know that her husband was in Mr. Gilbert’s debt?”

Ward gave me a hard glance. “She did, and was naturally concerned. So Mr. Gilbert has spoken to you of this transaction?”

“Only in the most general terms.”

Ward frowned, as though considering his position. I tried to help.

“I think you may wish to express a misgiving that might seem to reflect badly on Mr. Gilbert. Let me say what I think is in your mind. If I am near the mark, we can discuss my words without your having to commit yourself to an opinion.”

He took in the suggestion and nodded.

“Very well,” I said. “Here is Mr. Quentin, drowned in unfortunate circumstances, apparently in a state of desperation. And here is Mr. Hurlock making a gross physical attack—seemingly again as a result of desperation. Is it possible, therefore, that Mr. Gilbert has lately been showing an unaccustomed harshness? Have I come near your thoughts?”

The reply was characteristically indirect: “Mr. Gilbert is a gentleman of wealth and influence. Many lives are dependent on him.”

“Many—including my own. If it is indeed the case that he is becoming more capricious, I have selfish reasons for concern. But I am by no means clear what can be done.”

Again Ward sat silent, digesting my words.

“No more am I, Mr. Fenwick,” he said at length. “But I hope I may continue to confide in you should further issues of this kind arise.”

We parted cordially, with a handshake. I was pleased with my show of judiciousness, given that I had been treading the thinnest of ice. Mr. Ward could never have guessed that I had been vigorously abetting my godfather’s degeneration.

W
hen my masquerade garb was delivered, my first response was disappointment. Could these crudely concocted bits and pieces have any transformative effect? Having put them on, however, and posed before the mirror, I was on the whole pleased. As I had hoped, the proportion of my face visible between winged hat and beard seemed small enough to render me anonymous, unless to a few intimates. In general I appeared to good advantage, nimbler and lighter than my everyday self. My caduceus, although a tiresome encumbrance, obliged me to strike graceful attitudes, as of a being ready to walk upon air.

My one doubt concerned my sandals: the wing tips trailed the ground in what appeared to me an insufficiently Mercurial fashion. In need of an observer’s view of the matter, I summoned Mrs. Deacon and paraded myself before her. She was composed, as always, while she surveyed me, but I detected a stifled smile.

“Do I amuse you, Mrs. Deacon?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Fenwick. You are godlike. But you have the beard of a pirate.”

“And why not? There is much that we do not know about the shaving practices of the immortals. But what say you to these trailing wings on my feet?”

She examined them gravely.

“The wings are very well in themselves; but if you are not to trip yourself you must be able to fold them. I can alter them for you.”

I welcomed the offer, and had my sandals returned that night, expertly mended. Mrs. Deacon smiled again when she delivered them. I was grateful for the service she had done me, and pleased that having seen me in celestial apparel, she seemed to look on me with favor. Here was a good omen for the masquerade.

Chapter 19

T
his uncertain account of Crocker’s masquerade is set down the day after the event. My memories of it are clouded by drink and by the phantasmal character of the entertainment itself. I write with an aching head, in an effort to make sense of what I only half recall.

I began the evening in excellent spirits. Arrayed as Hermes—musician, traveler, friend to thieves and harlots—I felt my powers increased. The mirror showed me a figure that could have passed muster on a Greek vase.

I took a chair to Wyvern Street. Stowed in a malodorous box borne by two trotting oafs, the god of motion was free to review his plans. I would risk some new advance upon Sarah, almost at any cost, but my recklessness would have to be discreet. Much would depend on the disposition of the house: I would need privacy and shadows. Ogden and Kitty, in particular, would have to be safely occupied elsewhere. But I should find Kitty also, and perhaps even persuade her to supply a pleasant postscript to the evening.

I traveled bareheaded, but resumed hat and beard when my ignoble chariot arrived. Clutching my caduceus, I looked about. Chairs had been directed to the front of the house, coaches to the courtyard at the rear. The August evening was warm and bright. A crowd of onlookers was being held at a distance while the guests, brightly colored as parrots, alighted and made their way to the front door. Pike was presiding there, in the guise of a footman, on watch for the uninvited.

The interior of the house was disappointingly plain at first glance, most of the furnishings having been removed. There was no evidence of Ogden’s claimed artistry. The evening sunlight shone through high windows into the spacious rooms where the guests were mingling and circling very much as they might have done at Vauxhall. But these guests themselves offered a remarkable spectacle. I saw a great-bellied glutton, a Titania, an exotic Delilah with scissors in her hand and hair in her girdle. Some were garbed as at Vauxhall: a Cleopatra, a golden-haired angel, the ghost from
Hamlet
. A little Puck darted past me. Medusa, with twitching locks, was in conversation with Falstaff, while across the room stood a dramatic Diana with glittering headdress and silver bow. Flesh made the livelier show, but Virtue could boast longer robes and more graceful postures. None of those I saw did I recognize at this first glance.