by Wray Delaney
‘Are they?’ I said.
Both stopped, surprised, and stared at me as if they had forgotten that I was at the table.
‘Yes, Lord Beaumont.’
‘I fail to understand,’ I said.
‘What is it exactly that you do not understand, my lord?’ Parson Pegwell pronounced each word slowly as if speaking to an imbecile.
‘The New Testament records that the Devil was unafraid of even Christ himself. So why would he be afraid of your gibberish?’
Lord Rodermere laughed, despite himself, while the parson looked as if he had been nailed to the cross of misunderstanding.
‘My lord,’ he said, shocked that his ally should find what I said amusing. ‘Laughter only encourages the Devil. This is a serious matter. I believe, if you would allow me, that I can help your son find his way back to the path of righteousness.’
I could see that my father had become bored with the conversation. Nothing much interested him for long unless it was to do with womanising, hunting and shooting. The church and its superstitions were to be negotiated and if none of it interfered with his pleasures he was happy to conform.
He finished his goblet of wine, stood up, stretched and farted.
‘It is of no interest to me what you do or how you do it if you can assure me I will never see that hideous apparition again.’
With that he left the table.
Small men with mean eyes like Parson Pegwell remember every perceived insult against God. They are the hooks to be used in the future to ensure the fish does not escape the line.
As the parson watched my father walk away I suspected that it was not me he wished to catch but a larger fish by far, and one more useful to his ambition.
THE BEAST
XLI
This Parson Pegwell is alight with want when he talks to you, talks of saints martyred with arrows. He prays that his good book will save you but it is riddled with the words of a sacrificial son and of his father, a vengeful god who sent his ghost to violate a virgin. These stories of barbarism, the parson says, will rescue you from your madness. He brings you holy relics, vials of water and oils.
This ashen brimstone of a man, this mooncalf will never frighten Randa, never frighten me away, not with a book he does not understand. Only you can make me go, not him, nor his babbling lord. Parson Pegwell speaks words that lack belief and his hungry eyes never leave your face.
Randa understands.
I understand, and I wish I did not, that he too is blinded by your beauty. I have seen that look on all those who come into your presence and my heart is heavy to know that I am not alone in my love for you. This was my folly: to believe that you belonged to me. The curse is not only on you, but on we who look upon your face while you have no notion of the pain you cause.
I see the hopelessness of my affection. But Randa is different, Randa knows you, unlike the others, Randa knows the man behind the mask. You are not vain, you are kind, honourable . . .
‘Who are you, Randa?’
I hold my breath.
‘Come, why such modesty? Show yourself, mistress of my madness. Parson Pegwell, if you believe him, has the power to chase you from my door with just a prayer. Have you nothing to say? At least then do me the honour of letting me see the cause of my insanity.’
‘I meant no harm.’
My words are dragged from me and startle me as much as they do him.
‘I know you have a voice, Randa, but do you possess a body to house the voice, a soul to keep it company?’
I do not answer. Neither do I dare show my self.
‘What do you want of me?’ he asks. ‘Is it not enough that I am on the brink of losing my grasp on reason?’
I am too shy to tell him what I want.
‘You have nothing to say? That is most unlike you. I often hear your thoughts. I hear my father is not to your liking and in that we share a common understanding. Come, Mistress Randa, if you will not talk to me then at least give me a glimpse of you. Are you a ghost?’
‘I have a heart that beats.’
‘Then I ask again, what shape are you who devours rabbits and hens and has the strength to carry a deer’s carcass up to the tower? There must at least be a stomach to you. I imagine you have wings, or otherwise talons strong enough to climb stone.’
‘I cannot say but that there be mystery to me.’
‘Are you too terrifying to behold?’
‘I have an ancient soul, housed in a different skin. I do not belong to the leaden world of man.’
‘Did your father name you Randa?’
‘My father wished I had not been born.’
‘Who is your father?’
‘A dealer in magic who understands it not.’
‘Who is your mother?’
‘My mother is an angel.’
‘It was you who stopped me from killing my father, was it not?’
‘Yes, it was me.’
‘Why?’
‘It is in my nature to kill, not in yours.’
‘You do not know me. You see the mask, not the man.’
‘I do see you.’
‘No. You are like everyone else – they see what they wish to see when they look at me.’
‘It is a curse,’ I say.
‘Never was a truth better spoken,’ he says.
THE BEAUTY
XLII
In my dream I wander through my favourite chambers, alone as always. Then I see her.
I bow, beg her forgiveness and ask if she be the lady of the house. She looks in my direction and says nothing. She is a little younger than I, tall, with dark auburn hair that falls in heavy ringlets and frames her face. Her neck is elegant and bejewelled with heavy stones that gleam as do only true gems of value. Her features fascinate me. Dark eyebrows, emerald green eyes, her nose beaked, her lips full. She moves with such elegance, as if she is aware of all her limbs and the effect they make on the space around her.
‘My lady,’ I say.
She stares through me and goes to a glass that hangs on the wall in an elaborate and gilded frame. I do not remember it being there when I had entered that chamber before. It seems to me that the glass lights up with her reflection yet when I stand next to her so she might see me in it there is no image of me to be seen. All my presence does is cause her to shudder. I am invisible.
She walks away through the chambers, her fingertips touching the surface of the doors only to rest a moment before she moves on. Her gown, black as ebony, trails behind her. In the last chamber there is a chair and a fire burning in the hearth. I go closer, still she sees me not but her gown falls liquid velvet to the floor and she is naked. The sight of her makes my cock hard. She owns beautiful breasts, heavy but with a shape that a goddess would envy, berry red nipples so dainty a sweetmeat I could devour them. Being close to her gives me a sense of deep intimacy. She holds by the quill a long, fire-red feather and plays with it, running it through her fingers, brushing the feather down her neck, stopping there awhile. A smile on her lips, the feather begins its blissful flight, encircling her breasts, down her stomach then opening her legs so that I can see the black bush framing the theatre of her cunny. I long to suck the moisture from her. I feel my life will be over if I cannot possess her, if my mouth cannot be where the feather now rests. So engorged with desire am I that I shout, ‘I am here. I am here.’
Then I awoke, never again to dream of the house or the lady.
XLIII
Parson Pegwell declared I was cured. If it was so I felt no different than I did before but having suffered such idiocy at his hands I knew that my madness had more sanity to it than I had supposed.
I was called to my father in his chamber and found him standing by the fire and Parson Pegwell seated, giving a sermon on what he believed had happened to Lord Rodermere.
‘Witchcraft. You, like your son, have been put under a wicked spell.’ My father was about to address me when the over-zealous Pegwell forestalled him. ‘Lord Beaumont
, I was telling your father that with the help of the good Lord I have rid you of your demon.’
I was still lost in the dream, dizzy with desire.
My father turned to me and said, grudgingly, that I did indeed have more colour and my eyes were not so wild.
‘But,’ added the irrepressible parson, ‘we must remain vigilant and keep danger from door and hearth.’
‘Quiet, man!’ shouted Lord Rodermere. ‘I have had enough of your prattle. I want no more of your preaching. If my son is cured then one thing I am certain of is that it has nothing to do with you. Get out.’
Parson Pegwell was not expecting such abuse. And there lay the power of Francis Thursby, Earl of Rodermere. What made him a tyrant was that no one knew when the storm in him would break, and wherever the lightning struck it left its scars.
I decided that night to take one of my father’s whores, hoping to conjure the dark lady of my dreams in the body of another.
My father’s two favourite whores arrived as the evening’s entertainment and with them was a young girl of about my age. Although her face and neck were painted white she did not fool Lord Rodermere. With his usual grace, he ordered that she be sent back from whence she came and he did not mean the whore house.
I found her in an antechamber, freezing cold. She told me her name was Gally.
‘An unusual name,’ I said.
‘It comes from gallimaufrey, sir. It’s what my mother called me. She said I was a hodge-podge, made from all the remains in the larder. I can see you were not made that way. Are you Lord Rodermere’s son?’
‘I have that honour.’
‘The mad one?’
‘The only one. And I am pleased to tell you, mistress, that I am now believed to be cured.’
She laughed and I knew I had found someone I could talk to, even fuck, and the thought excited me. I had been alone with Randa too long and I relished the idea of company, of conversation with someone who was not invisible.
I took Gally to my chamber. I hoped Randa might have gone hunting as was her way, but I felt her presence there. So be it.
We stood there awkwardly, Gally and me. I asked if she was hungry.
‘Gutfoundered,’ she said.
The manner in which she spoke amused me.
‘My lord,’ she said, ‘have you never heard such words trip off the vulgar tongue?’
I ordered wine and food to be brought to us and while we ate she told me of London. I savoured every word. She had a liking for the play and the players, she said, though a more ragbag bunch would be hard to find.
‘Some of them are little more than gallowglasses – mercenaries disguised as actors, nothing better.’
Suddenly, an unexpected feeling of merriment ran through my body. My cock had refused to lie quiet all day and was once more standing to attention, desperate for satisfaction.
‘Would you like to kiss me?’ she asked.
You do not love him, you do not know him. You do not know how long I have loved him. We are inseparable. Do not make me jealous, for in jealousy the demon lives.
Gally moved away from me.
‘God’s teeth! What was that?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘It was something,’ she said, looking round.
I took her hand.
‘It is nothing, I swear. Enough,’ I said quietly to the past mistress of my madness. ‘Begone,’ I added.
‘You sure you are not mad?’ said Gally.
‘Only with desire.’
She took my face in her hands.
‘I would say there was some witchery in your looks. You could make a woman or a man believe the moon was the sun. What is your preference, sir?’
Her question took me aback and I was silent for a while before I answered.
‘My preference is for an unattainable woman.’
She gazed at me and said, ‘Married?’ and before I could answer she began to kiss me until with a desperation I threw off my garments, giving my prick its freedom. I begged to see her without her clothes.
Gally undressed and what had appeared to be a young girl was in truth a boy not much older than myself. He had his cock and balls held tight between his legs so that he might be assumed to be of an indeterminate sex. The sight of him did not lessen the hardness of my cock.
‘I see, sir, that I do not wither you,’ he said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You intrigue me.’
Pushing me on to the bed, Gally bent down and was about to take the tip of my cock between his lips when he stopped and said, ‘What is this?’ He ran his finger over the star on my thigh. ‘Is it a mark of the beast?’
‘It is but a birthmark,’ I said, impatient for him to continue.
‘In the shape of a star?’
‘Yes, yes, and it matters not, not at this moment.’
I cared little just then for my star or his sex. Girl-boy-boygirl – all were one.
How cruel to make me watch you. How can I not see your skin, white on black. Two bodies ill fit, unfit and fit. The sky weighs down on me. My invisibility has hidden me from you and fooled me with the promise of the woman I can never be. I can give you nothing, nothing but moth dust.
You sleep wrapped in another’s arms, your eyelashes brushing your cheeks. I am wild with a desire that never can be fulfilled. You have taught me to understand my isolation, that I belong not to this world. I belong nowhere.
My love, let me whisper soft into your dreams. I was not a figment. I was Randa, who loved you better than the life she was given. Goodnight, sweet lord. We will not meet again.
XLIV
Randa was not there. I woke suddenly, knowing the silence was different – deeper, darker – and I wondered if she had gone for good. I was giddy with relief. I was free, my mind once more my own.
To make sure, I said softly, ‘Randa – are you there?’
‘Who you talking to?’ said Gally, waking.
‘No one,’ I said.
‘Then come here.’
It was dawn by the time he-she rose from the bed and I watched fascinated as the vulnerable girl reappeared.
‘Do you act?’ I asked.
‘I play the ladies’ roles – have done since I was twelve. I hardly ever wear boys’ clothes these days but sad to say the company at present is penniless, all as sick as could be with the Lombard Fever.’
‘Are you ill?’
He-she laughed. ‘It means sick with bone idleness due to the lack of employment. It can be the queen’s whim or the plague that closes us down, but this time we have Shakeshaft, the old rogue of a theatre manager, to thank for our misfortunes, he having drunk the profits and pissed them out in the Marshalsea. Now all that is left to us is to peck for our pennies off the arse pickings of gentlemen. But for all that I am not at everyone’s cunt and call. I have my pride. I came here as a favour to my friends.’
‘Actors like yourself?’ I asked.
‘In a manner of talking and depending where you weigh the words. Anyone who sells themselves is a whore in part – even his lordship’s parson, he who hides behind a screen playing for his own satisfaction while having a look at your father’s attempts at rutting. You know what the other whores say about Lord Rodermere?’ I did not. ‘That his hammer be brittle. In short, he cannot keep it up long enough for anyone’s satisfaction.’
That did not interest me but the notion that one could make a living by acting – albeit a precarious one – now there lay a road that I wanted much to travel.
Not knowing how to pay for such a night’s entertainment I offered her-him a ring.
‘No, you turnip,’ Gally said. ‘This one I did for the pleasure of it.’
‘Is there nothing you would you like?’
‘Sir, if I am honest, threads of the female kind would be greatly welcomed as they would help me find work.’
I gave her some garments my sister had left and accompanied her to the river where Master Sorrel, the bargeman, stood wrapped tight against the cold
waiting for his passengers. I remembered that when I was young he would take me out on the river, talk of its tides and turns. He had been close to my stepfather and I felt ashamed that I had not seen him for a while.
Gally’s friends came running up behind us, giggling with relief to see her. I handed them in turn to Master Sorrel. He took each by the hand and helped them into the barge.
‘Lord Beaumont,’ he said, ‘this is yours.’ He handed me a sealed letter. ‘You must have dropped it, my lord.’
And without another word he rowed off, soon to disappear in the morning mist that clung to the top of the water. I saw the letter was addressed to me. It was in my mother’s hand.
I went back to bed and read it. My mother, so uncertain as to the value or the safety of her words, had left blank spaces supposing that I might replace them with ones that better described her circumstances than she could. These blanks were puzzles and all I could conclude from the few words written there was that they were safe, living somewhere in London, that I was not to worry and that for some reason they had been to see the alchemist Thomas Finglas. It was a bittersweet pill, that letter. A bittersweet dawn that morning.
I could not believe that Randa would not come back. I told myself it was a relief to have my mind free of another’s thoughts. But I said it with too much conviction and not enough heart for the silence felt louder and more lonely than it ever was before.
In my chamber that evening still there was no sign of Randa. How strange it was with no little soul to interrupt my thoughts, no one in my head to contradict me. No more poetry, no more sad songs. I became angry. I should brush it off, be eternally grateful to be sane again. And here is the rub – I could hardly bring myself to acknowledge it. I missed her. I had loved her, loved the voice of my little soul. I pulled myself up. Love? No, that is not the right word and yet I could find no better to replace it.
I sat staring at the fire. I did not join my father for he, on hearing how I had passed the night, was disgusted – not that I had spent it with a boy but with a blackamoor. It was almost too much for him to bear. It determined me of one thing: that I could not stay there much longer. Better by far to be my own master, make my own way in the world. I was well educated, I loved words; perhaps, I thought, a life as a thespian would suit my soul.