by DM Bryan
“Again, it is not so far as all that. But to remove any mystery, I can tell you that the housekeeper’s arrival signalled the outbreak of a quarrel that was not settled by that lady’s insistence that I was indeed the orphaned child sought by the gentleman. The disputation lasted some minutes, assisted by the character of the housekeeper, who dearly loved to battle. At last, the gentlemen—growing distracted by the impossible nature of my claims—decided to take down my breeches and discover for themselves what they termed “my true nature.” To this proposition, I protested most stridently. I understood what the gentlemen could not—that my true nature could not be covered or uncovered by clothing. Accordingly, I kicked and shouted and fought so violently they released hold of me, and, like trolls, they began to argue between themselves.
“It is her natural modesty that makes the child behave so,” concluded one, “She is most definitely a girl.”
“His violence is prodigious,” said another. “A boy I say.”
I’d kicked this gentleman.
“She is a lying wench and dissembles like the rest,” said a third.
This one I’d bitten.
“Nonsense—the chap shows spirit, determination, grit,” said the fourth, with a false smile.
“Goats. Fools. Leave the motherless babe alone.” That was the housekeeper.
Under the cover of so much noise, I crept backwards to the hall, gained the street through the front door, and took off running. In dressing for church, I’d placed my sketch under my suit of mourning, next to my heart, and on account of this chance precaution, I did not lose it in my sudden departure. But I took nothing else, not even a farewell from my own brother, whom I loved dearly. So quick was I in escaping that house that I turned at the end of the street and never saw a soul in pursuit.
Madam, it would take too long to relate the misadventures that came next. Suffice it to say, I changed nothing in being a boy, but in moving from well-bred to ill-bred, from high to low, from distinguished to extinguished, I became a new creature. Slowly, painfully, I made myself over—I suffered and learned, I altered and grew, and in time I flourished. But there is no time for more, for I imagine, by the stillness of the coach, that we have arrived at your destination.”
“Indeed, my destination,” said Glossolalia, who felt—she could not say what she felt. Instead, she said, “What should I call you? Perhaps you might tell me the name Mrs. E— gave you. You may not remember the other.”
“Useless to ask for either name, for I am neither of those persons. You must call me Cass, for that is my name now.”
“Cass,” said Glossolalia.
The coachman appeared, holding open the door for the lady. If he was surprised to find he had two passengers in place of one, his face did not show it.
“I wanted you to see my drawing,” said Cass. “I wanted you to know I lived. But I no longer need a mother.”
“Oh certainly, you need not stay,” said Glossolalia, “for what business could we have, you and I, after so many years?” And she made as if to open the coach door.
Then, she said, “Where will you go?”
“I have a friend,” said Cass. “I have not seen him in some time, but he will help me—I’m sure of that.”
“Then you must find him,” said Glossolalia. “Will you alight or go on?”
“I will get out.”
They stepped down from the coach, but as soon as they stood in the street, Glossolalia found her hand on Cass’ shoulder, as if restraining him, although the boy was making no effort to flee.
“Certainly, you must go,” repeated Glossolalia, “but I think you might be hungry after such a day. I wonder … bread, cheese? We might toast some. Before you go.”
Cass shut his eyes—only for a moment.
“Before I go,” he said, and together they went inside.
Finis.
Chapter 20
Pugg’s Note, the Last.
And so, we make a finis, but still, a little more remains to be told. I am bound by the beginning I made. Do you remember what I told you then? How I compared myself to a leather case, leashing my life to its pages? Dying dog, dying art, I said. Death launched my appeal to you and so what else but death can conclude this journey—death must stop up my mouth and close my eyes.
But I am not ready yet.
I cannot leave Sarah, standing on Hogarth’s front steps, his promissory note held loosely between her fingers. I must watch as the lady’s face empties itself of some blended sentiment. Pride bubbles and bursts, while ambition, always an effort, sinks like a tide. She thinks only of home and her new garden. By the time she remembers her portmanteau she is already sitting on the bed in Hill Street. She decides to petition Elizabeth to send someone to fetch it, but the request cannot be made without an explanation, which will only beget more questions. The bell goes unrung; the favour goes unasked. Later, in the coach back to Bath, she decides she will write Mr. Hogarth and herself solicit the missing object’s return, but when she is finally seated at her own table the pen will not form the required words. She cringes to remember her visit to the artist’s lair; she would rather forget. Shame, like a stick in her ribs, moves her sideways through the weeks, months, years, until the case is not exactly forgotten but certainly abandoned.
Then comes the day in 1794 when she receives a polite letter from a person signing himself Mr. A. Pugg. He has, he writes, a leather case he suspects may be hers. He cannot say exactly how it came into his possession, but he would like to meet her. The portmanteau contains some prints made by Master Hogarth and an assortment of other papers—an homage to the sister arts of word and picture. He is eager to speak with her further and hopes he may call.
Sarah notes the “Master” decorating Hogarth’s name and assumes a former servant, a butler or footman with the portmanteau on his conscience. She does not guess the truth, not even when I appear on her front step, waiting in the chill Norfolk air.
No well-trained servant will admit a dirty stray, not even one capable of knocking with the back of his paw on the black-painted door. But as a charm against brooms or a parlour maid’s boot, I am ready to beg. I have rehearsed my act, tilting my head, sitting on my haunches, holding out my paw. Tugging at heartstrings, I hope to engender sufficient compassion that I might gain entrance in the arms of a housemaid. Once over the doorsill, I trust to providence to suggest a scheme by which Sarah Scott and I might communicate.
The scene does not play out exactly as intended—how could it.
The door is opened, not by a footman or serving woman, but by the lady herself, standing on the threshold in cap and shawl. I recognize her. She is old, and the tendrils of hair about her neck have bleached as pale as the cotton from which they escape. She looks only once at where I sit on the step. Then she glances from side to side, as though looking for trick-playing children. Satisfied, she bows, a little stiffly, and invites me in.
I trot through the door, as though I know the way, and Sarah follows me down the narrow passage. Together, we emerge into the smoky warmth of the small parlour where a well-raked fire burns in the hearth. I look about me, observing the few furnishings, the chairs, the sideboard, the small bookcase. I cross to this last and look up.
On a middle shelf, with gold letters on its spine, is a bound volume of Mr. Hogarth’s prints. I paw at the case and begin to bark with excitement.
“Shush,” says Sarah, holding a finger to her lips. “I am only a guest in this house and unwilling to disturb my friends, who have been kind enough to make an old woman feel at home.”
I stop barking at once.
“Good boy.” Then she puts her head on one side and regards me shrewdly. “How come you are here?” she says. “Whose dog are you? There is an air of intelligence in your eyes I have never before observed in any of your breed—or any other breed, to tell the truth.”
I paw the volume
of my Master’s prints.
“Hogarth had a dog like you,” says Sarah, remembering. She joins me at the bookshelf and passes her fingers over the spines—tender as a lover. Slowly, she takes the gilt-lettered volume from the shelf. “It is an age since I looked at this,” says she.
In her hands, the pages fall open to show a truncated stub, the edge cleanly cut by a finely made pair of scissors.
I bark again, just once, but her whole attention is absorbed by the amputation of her book of prints and she says nothing.
“I had not remembered,” murmurs Sarah Scott. She takes the book back to the hearth and sinks into a French armchair. A second chair is pulled up before the fire, and I jump onto its rush-bottomed seat to wait. She settles the book in her lap and places her hand over the absence where The Harlot’s Progress ought to begin. In another moment, she begins to turn pages, stopping to exclaim each time she finds a scene missing. In this way she discovers prints pruned from Marriage a-la mode, from the story of the rake, and from the tale of those apprentices, idle and industrious. Over this last she sits so long, I am forced to bark again.
“I should put you out,” she says to me. “Get out of that chair.” Then she says, “You have not muddy feet, I hope?”
The cleanliness of my paws interests me not at all. Only Sarah Scott commands my full attention.
The lady settles back in her chair and closes her eyes. The firelight shows me a face seamed with expression, facetted and pieced as armour. When her eyes flicker open, she starts forward, leaving age behind. For a moment, she is all cheek and chin, her flesh smooth amber, and then she sinks back into the wings of her chair. “I had drawings of my own in that portmanteau,” she says. “Where are they now?”
She gazes at me, in the opposite chair, and she forgets what I am. In her eyes, I consist of dream, of loneliness.
“Where are my clippings, the letters?” she wants to know. “Where are my stories?”
I growl, deep in my throat.
“So you found them,” she says. “Did you like what you read—no, don’t tell me. Critics are dogs, and so are you.”
She laughs at her own joke, a wheezing burst of pleasure.
“It’s yours, pug—finders-keepers,” she says, when she is quieter. “It was never mine to begin with. Some of it I pirated, some I had to scrub. A little is true history.”
I tilt my head. I sit up on my haunches. I hold out my paw.
“Why dog,” she says, “are you after more? Is that what you’ve come for?”
Did I bark then? I cannot remember.
“I saw them one last time, you know, the mother and son—one morning, when I was passing through Smithfield. It was a market day, blue-white and clipped with frost. Cattle lowed and men haggled. Black coated farmers stamped their feet to keep warm.”
Old as she is, Sarah Scott is big with a tale. I settle myself more comfortably in my chair.
“By a barrow of apples, the first of the season, I saw them,” says she. “The boy was a handsome lad, as tall as his mother and almost grown. He sat on a barrel, eating his pippin and sweet juice wetted his chin. He was gnawing its flesh to the core, as though apples had been a rare thing with him. His mother wore skirts of serviceable linen and wool, short enough to clear the Smithfield mud. When I came close, I nodded at the mother, but she did not recognize me. Then, I pretended to be busy at the costermonger’s stall, while I listened to all they said.
“Have you noticed,” said the mother to the son, “that young man? He follows us wherever we go.”
I turned in the direction she indicated. A gangly fellow stood a little behind, grinning stupidly.
At the sight of him, the boy left off chewing, and then began again. “Gotobed, there you are,” he said, as the tall lad inched forward. The boy spoke with his mouth full of mashed fruit, which seemed an intentional bit of cheek.
The provocation did not land. “As I live and breathe—Cass Quire,” said the gangly chap, sketching out a bow. Full of good manners, he turned and bowed low to Glossolalia, for she was the lady.
Cass sighed and threw away his apple, but his exasperation was all in show. He grinned as he said, “Gotobed, this is my mother.”
“Mr. Gotobed?” said that lady. “Is this the fellow you feared lost?”
To which Gotobed replied, “Feared me lost? I hope so, madam—yes, I do.”
“Cass sought you in any number of stews and has scanned the newspapers daily in case of some accident. Your absence has been a matter of no little concern.”
“Don’t believe her,” said Cass Quire.
“Indeed, madam,” said Gotobed. “I do believe. The information is gratifying.”
The lady raised an eyebrow. “And your reunification equally so, I suppose?”
“Vastly pleasant. Our unexpected separation distressed me more than I can say,” said Gotobed. “I have been searching—oh, how I have searched.” And he bowed again. To Glossolalia. To his friend.
“You know she is a boy,” said the lady.
“Madam,” said Gotobed, “none of us is perfect.”
To my ears they sounded a perfect pair of Bedlamites.
When Glossolalia asked Gotobed if he would go home with them and take some tea, he agreed with so many bows, his hat fell off and landed in a steaming pile of Smithfield shit. And that was the last I saw of them.”
Sarah stops talking, and I yip.
She nods. “We too should have some tea,” the lady says.
She rises and sets a pot on the hearth, pouring a little water in a dish for me. Wandering about the room, she complains that the caddy has gone missing again, discovering it, at last, in the brown shadow of the window ledge. She waves the box under my nose, and I scent Souchong through the clock-shaped hole of the lock. I grunt with pleasure.
She says, “You are a good boy—a very good boy.”
I bark.
She cocks her head, eyes bright with pleasure. We are obliging and respectable company for each other.
“You should bury that portmanteau, Mr. Pugg,” says Sarah. “Dig a hole in the good black loam and plant it deep.”
The kettle answers, steaming and hissing. She lifts it from the flame and pours. Liquid and steam part ways. While the tea steeps, she gives me my saucer of water, which I lap up greedily, for it was thirsty work to find her. She watches me, and when I am done, she smiles. Her own tea, she decants into its waiting bowl. The china is so fine, so paper thin, that her knobbed fingers, backlit by firelight, appear as shadows through the clay. I hear the old lady, smacking her lips.
When we have swallowed all, she collects our vessels, returning them to the dresser that stands in the gloom. Then, a silence germinates in that room, green and growing. I smell beeswax and mould, urine and spicy Norfolk lavender. The lady is looking at me. I watch her face as I might watch a rat, alive to its every movement. Her mouth quivers, still full of words. Between ivory teeth, her tongue glistens, moist and pale as an oyster. She has more to say.
The lady speaks. “I know a place in the garden where a shadow on an outbuilding looks just like chinoiserie wallpaper. I used to walk that way whenever I could, but now I have only to close my eyes to see. These days, I wear memory closer than peach-coloured silk. Once, I had poppies, sunflowers, and thistles. A garden with More. In Batheaston, I heard a squirrel run over the roof. Its clever, jointed toes bouncing from eave to eave. I said, “Good for you.” I spoke to the squirrel, but Barbara answered. “Thank you,” she said. In Bath, we washed our own linens when money ran short. We laughed at our red knuckles, our clean nails. In London, my head filled with a lopsided novel, like an amateur sketch. I folded the pages into a paper boat, bid the crew sail on. When the sun came out, I strolled Berkeley Square. Invisible sea boots set me swaggering. “Stop rolling about like that,” said Elizabeth. “What on earth is the matter with you?”
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For a moment, the lady stops speaking and gazes into space. She seems to have forgotten my presence—or at least that she speaks to a dog.
She says, “Our letters, Elizabeth and I, hold empty pits, mined out sections with the words removed—the death of her son, the loss of her husband. When Barbara died, what did I say? I hardly remember. But whatever I said, Elizabeth knew. She’d always known. Those prints torn from Mr. Hogarth’s book—his harlot, the rake, the unmarried wife, and the idle apprentice—put me in mind of a satirical autobiography, like something of Mr. Sterne’s. I cannot help myself—I have that kind of mind. Why, Mr. Pugg, I might even write a part for you.”
But then she meets my eye, and in her gaze is a transient glister that alarms me. An inky blot mars the perfect amiability of her expression.
Sarah Scott attempts to rise. She has been sitting a long time. The lady plants her slippers on the floorboards and pushes with her hands. As she struggles, she exhales angrily.
“Hogarth had a dog like you,” says the old woman, “but that pug was fat and lazy.”
She is telling me nothing I want to hear. My Master’s fame is equal to her obscurity. I show her my teeth in what is not a smile.
“Shall I put you out?” says Sarah Scott. “It is not raining, and that is something to be thankful for.”
Beyond the window, branches move.
I am growling to myself, thinking of the portmanteau. Like all novels, that leather case stinks of people, of authors stitching, starching, and copying whatever came before. The novel is an invention, like the lightening rod, the steam engine, and the self-winding clock. Its history is in its pages, and I am a faithful dog.
On her feet at last, Sarah Scott pushes open the door to the dark passage. She calls me pug, or perhaps Pugg—who can guess which—and I follow her toward the eternal glow of the entrance hall. Against the black door, with its shining paint, Sarah Scott stands in the transom’s light. She lifts the latch and pushes.