by David Liss
“I very much doubt it,” I answered, for I knew at once that these were men of the Society for the Reformation of Manners or, at the very least, one of the many organizations in its vein that had sprung up in recent years. These men prowled the streets at night, looking for anyone who might be involved in activities that were in violation of both the laws of God and the kingdom, though not those involved in crimes of violence, since these religious men were hardly equal to such prey. For the very worst of reasons, the constables and the magistrates had allowed these men to act as their proxies, so a group of religiously inflamed and determined citizens could grab a man for no greater crime than drunkenness or seeking a whore’s company and arrange to have him locked away for a hellish night. I mentioned that sodomites fared badly in the compter, but it was only the most determined sort of brute who escaped without a severe beating and humiliation.
“’Tis such a thing as a curfew in this town,” the Reformation man said to me.
“I have heard that,” I answered, “but I’ve never met a soul who cared a jot for it but zealots like yourself. My friend and I did no more than walk down the street, and I shan’t be troubled for it.”
“We saw you do nothing but walk down the street, but I know well that you intend to engage in the most bestial acts, crimes that are an abomination to God and nature.”
“I’ll have none of it,” I said, and drew my hanger.
The men gasped, as though they had never conceived that a man going about on his own business would resist these reprehensible accusations.
“I am no sodomite and on no criminal activity,” I announced, “but I am a man trained in the fighting arts, so I ask which of you will give me the lie?”
I heard the sound of their breathing, but no more response than that.
“I thought as much. Now be off,” I called, and waved my blade about ceremoniously. It did the trick, for the religious ruffians scattered, and Elias and I continued along our path for another block or so until we reached the location Mrs. Pepper had bespoken.
Elias looked around. “Oh, rabbit it!” he said.
“What is it?”
“I begin to perceive why the Reformation men construed our business so falsely. Unless I miss my guess, this Mr. Teaser is to be found at Mother Clap’s home.”
“Mother Clap?” I cried. “Can that be the name of a real bawd? It sounds more improbable than a friend named Teaser.”
“I believe them to be part of the same phenomenon, for I have it on very good authority that Mother Clap’s is the most celebrated molly house in the metropolis.”
I had no desire to enter a molly house and came close to voicing my objection. But even as I nearly spoke the words, I though it very odd that a man such as myself, who has been forced to face all manner of danger, should be so squeamish in the face of behaviors that offered no direct harm. I might dislike how some men chose to conduct themselves—just as I might dislike cowards—but their existence did not threaten mine.
I glanced at Elias. “You go knock upon the door,” I said. “You have a better chance of earning their trust.”
I thought he should rage at me for my jest, but he only laughed. “At last I have found something to fill Benjamin Weaver with fear,” he said, “and perhaps some way to earn back your goodwill.”
Elias knocked hard on the door, and in an instant his efforts were answered. The door opened to reveal a creature in a serving girl’s attire, but this was no girl at all. Here was a man, and no small one either, dressed as a girl and wearing a wig, with a prim little bonnet atop. This should have been absurd enough, but the fellow’s face was dark with emerging beard, and though he curtsied and conducted himself with all seriousness, the effect was both comic and grotesque.
“Can I help you gentlemen?” the servant asked in a voice that was softened but not emasculated. It was clear to me that this man did not wish to convince anyone he was a woman. No, for all the world he wanted to appear as a man dressed as a woman, and it was a damnably curious and uneasy thing.
Elias cleared his throat. “Yes, we seek a man who uses the name Teaser.”
“What’s your business with him, then?” the man asked, his voice losing some of its softness. I also observed that his accent was of the lower sort, a kind of Hockley in the Hole accent if I placed it right, and that surprised me. I had always believed sodomy to be the crime of the decadently wealthy, but here was a man of the lower orders. I wondered if he was indeed sodomitically inclined or if this was merely a position he took out of necessity. And then a darker thought crossed my mind, that this low fellow was held against his will. I told myself I would remain vigilant against signs of such horrors.
I stepped forward. “Our business with him is our own. Pray inform him he has visitors, and we shall answer for the rest.”
“I’m afraid I cannot do that, sir. Perhaps you would like to leave your card, and Mr. Teaser—if there is such a person—will call upon you if he so desires.”
I observed that the servant had not denied the presence of the man at first, but now he brought into question his very existence. “He shall not know who we are, but the business is of the greatest urgency. I mean no harm to him or your—your associates, but I must speak with him at once.” I handed the servant my card.
“This ain’t your home, and you don’t command here. I’ll leave your card as you wish or no, but be off with you.”
Were he a mere serving man I should have, at this point in our impasse, pushed past him. The truth was I had no desire to touch a being of his stamp, so I continued to depend upon words. “I’ll not be off. You may let us in of your own volition, or you may attempt to stop us. The choice is yours, sir.”
“Call me madam, if you please,” he said.
“I care not what you call yourself, but stand aside.”
At that moment another figure appeared at the door, this one a woman in body as well as in spirit. She was a plump woman of some advanced years, though with large blue eyes that radiated an indulgent kindness. Her clothes were simple yet well-made, and she looked nothing so much as a respectable and generous matron. “Be off with ye. I’ll brook no more church palaver from hypocrites such as you. Go tell it to the devil. You’ve more in common with him than you have with us.”
The rant left me puzzled for a moment as to the best way to proceed. Elias, fortunately, ever the diplomat, bowed slightly, and led the way.
“Madam, as we’ve tried to explain to your servant, we mean no harm, but we have the most urgent business with Mr. Teaser. Allow me to assure you that you have very likely never had two gentlemen upon your stoop less likely to engage in church palaver. My associate is a Hebrew and I am a libertine—one inclined toward women, you understand.”
This woman now peered at the card I had handed the servant and then looked up at me. “You’re Benjamin Weaver, the thieftaker.”
Despite my ill ease, I offered a bow.
“The man you ask about ain’t done nothing. I wouldn’t think you sunk so low as to be seeking to earn your coin by prosecuting mollies.”
“You misunderstand me,” I assured her. “My business with the gentleman is to obtain information about an acquaintance of his. I have no interest in bothering you or your friends.”
“You swear it?” she asked.
“You have my word of honor. I want only to inquire of him a few significant matters, and then I shall be gone.”
“Very well,” she said. “Come in, then. We can’t have the door open all night, can we?”
This woman, I had no doubt, was the infamous Mother Clap, and she now led us through her home with a sense of wary proprietorship. The place had the cast of a fine home from the previous century, but all was now disheveled and tattered. The building smelled of mold and dust, and I had no doubt that, were I to stamp upon the rug, a cloud of filth should arise.
We wound our way through the house, following our Virgil as she took us through surprisingly tasteful halls and well-appointe
d chambers. The people inhabiting these spaces, however, were another matter entirely. We came into a large room in which a ball of sorts was under way. Tables had been set up for revelers to sit and drink and talk, and three fiddlers played while six or seven couples crossed an old warped wooden floor. Some two dozen or so men stood on the edges of the floor, engaged in conversation. I observed that, among the dancers, each couple contained one ordinary-looking man and one man much like the servant who had opened the door, dressed unconvincingly as a woman.
Mother Clap led us to a parlor in the back of the house, where a fire burned pleasingly. She invited us to sit and poured us both a glass of port from a decanter, though I observed that she took none herself.
“I’ve sent Mary to fetch Teaser. He might be indisposed, however.”
I shuddered to think what might indispose him. I believe Mother Clap must have read my expression, because she gazed at me rather unkindly. “You do not approve of us here, Mr. Weaver?”
“It is not for me to approve or disapprove,” I answered, “but you must acknowledge that the men who spend their time here engage in most unnatural acts.”
“Aye, it is unnatural. It is unnatural too for a man to see clearly at night, but that does not prevent you from lighting your way with a candle or lantern, does it?”
“But is it not so,” Elias chimed in, with an eagerness I knew represented more the pleasure of exercising his intellect than because he felt passion for the issue, “that the holy writings forbid sodomy? They do not forbid illumination.”
Mother Clap gave Elias an appraising look. “They do, indeed, forbid sodomy. And they also forbid fornication with the ladies, do they not, Mr. Libertine? I wonder, my good sir, if you are as quick to raise the objections of the holy scriptures on that score as well.”
“I am not,” he agreed.
“And did not our Savior,” she asked me, “command that we raise up the powerless and wretched, take in and give comfort to those whom the powerful and privileged shun?”
“You must direct all inquiries regarding the Savior to Mr. Gordon,” I said.
Elias inclined his head in a seated bow. “I believe you have the best of us, madam. We are creatures shaped by the morals of our society. It may well be, as you propose, that our society’s objections are the arbitrary products of our time and place and nothing more.”
“One may be inclined to be the product of his time and place,” she said, “but is not the virtuous man obligated to make the effort to be more?”
“You most certainly have the right of it,” I said, by way of surrender, for though I could not master my feelings on the subject, I knew well that her words were just. As there appeared to be nothing more she could add to illuminate her feelings, and as we inquired no more, we sat now in silence, listening to the crackle of the fire, until, some minutes later, the door opened and a rather ordinary-looking fellow, plainly dressed like a merchant, entered the room. He was perhaps seven or eight and thirty, with an even, boyish face, marred by both freckles and irregular blotching of the skin of the sort more generally associated with much younger men.
“I believe you have asked to see me,” he said quietly.
“These gentlemen are Mr. Benjamin Weaver and his associate, Elias Gordon,” Mother Clap informed him, making it clear she intended to remain for the interview.
Elias and I both rose to offer our bows. “You are, I believe, Mr. Teaser?”
“That is the name I use here, yes,” he said.
He took his seat, and so we did the same.
“May I inquire your true name?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I prefer to keep that private. You must understand that I have a wife and family, and they should be very troubled to know of my dealings here.”
I had no doubt he was entirely correct on that score. “You are familiar, I believe, with a Mr. Absalom Pepper.”
Teaser shook his head. “I have never heard of any such man.”
I felt a pang of despair, but then it occurred to me that Teaser was not his real name, and there was no reason to believe that Pepper would be any more forthcoming. “A man with an interest in silk weaving,” I said. “One who carried a book and made notes upon the subject.”
“Oh, yes,” said Teaser, who now perked up with interest and even agitation. “Miss Owl. Do you know of her? Where is she?”
“Owl,” Mother Clap said. “Why, it’s been some months since we’ve had word of her. I’ve been concerned, I have.”
“What news of her?” Teaser asked. “Did she send you to find me? I have been so concerned. She one day merely stopped attending, and I feared the worst. I feared that her family must have discovered our secret, for why else would she abandon me so? Still, surely she could have sent me a note. Oh, why did she not?”
Elias and I exchanged a glance. I looked at the floor for a moment while I gathered the courage to meet Teaser’s eye. “You must prepare yourself for unhappy news. Owl, as you style him, is no more.”
“What?” Mother Clap demanded. “Dead? How?”
Teaser sat stunned, his eyes wide and wet, and then he slumped over in his chair, one hand pressed to his head in an attitude of theatrical despair. However, I had no doubt that he felt it quite sincerely. “How can she be dead?”
The confusion of gender began to wear at me. “It is a rather complex affair,” I said. “There is much of this I myself don’t entirely understand, but there are those who believe the East India Company may have been behind the mischief.”
“The East India Company,” Teaser said, with an affecting mix of anger and misery. “Oh, I warned her about crossing them, but she would not listen. No, she would not. Owl always had to have things her own way.”
Given that the worthy of whom we spoke, at the time of his death, was married to at least three women as well as consorting with sodomites, I could not find any reason to challenge this assessment. “I know this must be a terrible shock to you,” I said, “but I must nevertheless beg you to answer some of our questions at the moment.”
“Why?” he asked, face cradled in hands. “Why should I help you?”
“Because we have been asked to find out who did this terrible thing and bring those responsible to justice. Can you not tell me why you believed the East India Company would wish him dead?”
“By whom have you been hired?” he asked. “Who wants to see justice served?”
I understood I was at a crossroads. There could be no turning back, and in truth I was tired of half lies and deceptions. I was tired of conducting half an inquiry, and I wanted things brought to a head. And so I told him. “A man named Cobb hired me.”
“Cobb?” Teaser said. “Why would he care?”
My reader can imagine how I had to contain the urge to jump from my seat. No one in London’s business or social circles had ever heard of Cobb, but here a sodomite once involved with a man with three other wives spoke the name as though it were common as dust. And yet I knew that if he were to trust me, I needed to maintain authority and withhold my surprise.
I therefore shook my head. “As to that I cannot say,” I told him, as though the matter were nothing to me. “Cobb is but the man who hired me. His motives are his own. Though it is an interesting question. Perhaps you might speculate.”
Teaser rose from his chair so quickly, it was nearly a leap. “I must go. I must lie down. I—I want to help you, Mr. Weaver. I want to see justice done, I promise you. But I cannot speak of it this instant. Give me a moment to lie down, to weep, to collect my thoughts.”
“Of course,” I said, casting a glance at Mother Clap, for I did not wish to impose on her hospitality. She nodded her assent.
Teaser left the room quickly, and the three of us were left in awkward silence.
“You made no great effort to soften the blow,” Mother Clap said. “Perhaps you don’t believe that mollies feel love as you do.”
“Of course not,” I said, now feeling somewhat irritated. Mother Clap seem
ed to feel that my insensitivity toward sodomites was at the root of all the world’s evils. “When it comes to delivering unpleasant news, it is my experience that no way is kind or sensitive or gentle. The news is what it is, and far better it should be out, that it might be dealt with.”
“I see you do not understand the situation. Owl was not merely Teaser’s friend, or merely his lover. Owl was his wife.”
“His wife,” I said, making a great effort to keep my voice even.
“Perhaps not in the eyes of the law but surely in the eyes of God. Indeed, the ceremony was performed by an Anglican priest, a man who moves through the world as effortlessly and as free of taint as you do, Mr. Weaver.”
Evidently, she knew little of my life, but I let that pass. “The men here marry one another?”
“Oh, yes. One assumes the role of a wife, who is forever referred to as she from that point on, and their match is as serious and unbreakable as that between man and woman.”
“And in the case of Mr. Teaser and Owl,” Elias asked, “was this an unbreakable match?”
“On the part of Teaser, certainly,” Mother Clap said, with a certain amount of sadness, “but I fear Owl may have been more varied in her interests.”
“Among the other men?” I asked.
“And, if you must know, among the ladies as well. Many men who come here would never, if they had their way, gaze upon female flesh again, but others have developed the taste and cannot move away from it. Owl was such a one.”
“If I may be so bold as to say so,” I told her, “I am not surprised by your intelligence.”
“Because you think all men must lust after female flesh?”
“Not for that reason, no. For the reason that Mr. Absalom Pepper, whom you call Owl, was married to at least three women simultaneously. He was a bigamist, madam, and I believe a shameless opportunist as well. It is my belief that Pepper wished to use Mr. Teaser for some means of his own. To that end, he must have seduced the poor fellow to make his heart soft and his purse open.”
“A man,” Mother Clap observed, “is always trying to open one sort of purse or another.”