The Cunning House

by Richard Marggraf Turley

  To his astonishment, Jameson stepped out of the shadows. “Not here, John . . .” he cried, pulling down on one of the long, knotty arms. Kitson’s pale, yellow eyes swivelled. Aspinall braced for the inevitable, which did not come. Instead, the monster let the kicking tar fall, and allowed himself to be led away behind the bar.

  The tavern drew breath.

  It took four mollies to lug Sutton’s bulk into the street, one to each limb. The fiddler launched into another whirling rendition. Someone called for black strap.

  Aspinall jumped – Francis was pouring brandy through his fingers.

  Thomas frowned at the physician. “What’s a banging boy like you doing in The Swan, Xenophon? Shouldn’t tha’ be out making feet fer children’s stockings?”

  Aspinall took a gulp of brandy, hasping as it went down.

  “I put one sullen miss in the family way not once, but twice,” Donne interrupted. “As soon as a girl has a baby,” he added darkly, “she becomes an enemy.”

  “Y-e-s . . .” Francis said dubiously.

  “Ye mean tae say,” Miss Pasiphäe said, incredulously, “there micht be two wee Donnes scamperin’ aroond?”

  “Each more depraved than me,” Donne said. He wafted the air. “Od’s heart, this heat.”

  “Teel us a tale, brither!” Miss Pasiphäe thumped his fist into his palm, looking at Thomas.

  They all turned expectantly.

  “Since you ask so prettily. Some years back, I found myself in Brussels. They wor cutting men down to size in th’ main square. To judge from the quantity of claret on the boards, the executioner had been at it all day. Three rogues wor up next, two o’ them likely lads, one a simple boy wi’ straw hair, son of a pretty widow. The mother knelt at the young Capitaine’s feet, all cherry lips and jutting bubbies – ” he mimed with both hands “ – pleading with him. Promised him a new phase of heaven. Hell, if he wished it.” Thomas sniffed. “At that time, it worn’t uncommon fer three generations of one family to be dispatched at a single sitting, each set of progenitors strapped onto a bascule slick wi’ the blood of their darlings. Needless to say, our Capitaine wor deaf to the widow’s petition.”

  There was a pause.

  “They chopped the lad?” Donne said.

  “Aye, they did. The simpleton turned his head to his dam jus’ as the blade fell. His very last word wor – ‘mama!’.”

  “Tha’s ’ard,” Francis said quietly.

  “Issa gud story,” Miss Pasiphäe slurred approvingly.

  “Because it’s true,” Thomas replied.

  Mrs Cooke arrived with more brandy. Her lip was split and swollen. She gave the physician a rueful smile. “It’s not always like this.”

  “What? Of course, it is. Public houses – ” Francis said extravagantly, “the sin of all great cities.” He gazed around. “I’ll tell you a tale, boys, one to rival old Harlequin Billy’s.” He took a swig of gin. “It concerns a French trooper, wot I slew in the dunes.”

  Thomas groaned, pulling his chair closer.

  “They promised us black-eyed houris,” Francis began. (Aspinall leaned in with the others.) “Didn’t see a single one o’ those. Jus’ marched round in circles till our foreskins wuz red-raw with sand. Hotter than a punk’s notch, the air jingling wi’ grape. One morning alone, we had t’ put twenty lads to bed with a spade. Few miles out from Damanhur, we surprised a ragged-arse column of Frenchies wot’d bin battling clouds of Arabs all week. Bested ’em smartly enough. Soon after, word cum down we wuz to pay ’em back for Omedinar – ”

  “Omedinar?” asked Donne, rapt.

  “Little place, right up in the cow’s belly. Two dozen of our rocketeers ’ad surrendered there the week before. One of their squibs had gone off at the French commanding officer’s feet – left him a branchless trunk. In revenge, the Frenchies had our lads hoisted on the ends of pikes. Two in the back – ” he made quick thrusting motions with his fists “ – two in the front, just under the ribs. Then . . . allez-hup!” From his seat, Francis made a gesture like a man forking a stook of hay up onto a wain. He let out a heavy sigh. “We wuz told to bay’net anyone still drawing stream. All them wounded men, worse butchery than Vinegar Hill.”

  “Oh, you poor darling,” Donne crooned.

  “When it wuz done, the order came t’ march on Coron. But before I could form up wi’ the others, it came on sudden – shittin’ like a mink. Nerves, it must have been. I crouched up ’gainst a wall t’ let nature take her course. Told the boys I’d catch ’em up.”

  A long pause.

  “Was tha’ th’ teel?” Miss Pasiphäe said.

  Francis glared at him. “Must have passed out. When I regain’d me senses, I spied ’im – young swad in a soldat’s uniform, creeping over the piles of Frenchie dead. Dunno how he’d given our marauding van the slip. He wuz handsome, mind, wiv his pistols swinging.” Francis looked around balefully. “Should’ve seen his expression as he took in our ’andywork. All them guts out.” He rubbed his eyes as if there was desert sand in them. “He spotted me then, breeches round me ankles, legs covered wi’ filth, an’ come on with a blood-curdlin’ cry – sabre pointing straight at me thigh-’ole.

  “What on earth did you do?” said Donne.

  “Scrabbled to me feet, best I could – ” Francis grimaced “ – then keeled over. Jus’ lying there like an up-ended turtle waiting fer the soup pot. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind t’ draw me fire-piece. Quick, like, I spat a ball – last one – in the barrel . . . waited . . .” he closed one eye, taking aim with outstretched finger and cocked thumb, “waited . . . wai––ted . . . till I saw the pink of his cheeks. Then . . .” the thumb went down. “Smoke everywhere! Cuntin’ hell, I thought the pistol ’ad burst on me. But when the puff cleared, the bastard lay a few yards away, belly split open like a ripe mango. Weren’t dead, tho’.” He shivered. “He started fumbling for his own pistol – an’ there’s me, shot all spent . . .”

  Donne’s breath whistled through his teeth.

  “Nothing for it, wuz there, but to draw me knife – the one Da’ give me before I sailed. I crawled over, farting an’ belching, an’ stuck the quaint right in the neck. Oh, he tried to fend me off, but there wuz no heft to ’im. Christ, you should’ve heard him mewing as the blade went in.”

  “It was kill or be killed,” Donne said simply.

  “Tha’s right!” Francis’s head moved up and down. “When he’d finished twitching, I went through his pockets.” Catching Aspinall’s look, he said tetchily, “It’s a soldier’s right t’ root fer spoil. Anyway, I could feel something ’ard beneath his tunic – ”

  “Which reminds me . . .” Thomas said.

  Francis ignored him. “I began tuggin’ at his buttons . . .” He stopped.

  “And?” Donne brought his fist down on the table. “And? And? Don’t leave us hanging?”

  “Bandages – ” Francis gave the men a puzzled expression. “Yards an’ yards of ’em. Funny, cuz he ’adn’t moved like he wuz wounded. Oh-ho, I thought to myself, there’s something precious squirrelled away there. Meybe loot from Pharaoh’s tombs, enough to buy myself out of the army. I pulled away.”

  “We all know that feeling.” (Thomas again.)

  “What had the cull stashed?” Donne said.

  “Wot I found,” Francis said with an isolated look, “wuz a fine pair of dairies.”

  Blankness.

  More blankness.

  It sunk in.

  Thomas smirked. “You mean, you pinked a woman?”

  “I could see her then. The soft skin, high voice. The panic.” He sucked at his bottom lip. “She couldn’t ’av been more than sixteen.”

  “Whit the fuck was a bitch daein’ oan campaign?” said Miss Pasiphäe.

  “The law allows soldiers to kill anyone, man or woman, so long as they’re wearing uniform,” Donne said tartly. “You did no wrong.”

  Francis’s eyes glistened.

  “Hang an arse,” Thomas said slowly. “T
he Nile was when? ’97, ’98? How old were you?”

  “I wuz there.”

  Donne passed the brandy round, clucking his tongue.

  “I wuz there,” Francis repeated, more quietly now.

  Miss Pasiphäe reached for a glass. “London – a whore whae’ll welcome anyone, and anything, intae her.”

  Aspinall began to lift his own tumbler when Jameson laid a firm hand on his wrist.

  “Wait on, Xenophon. The White Swan’s an opportunity, but it’s also a risk. We’re sworn to murder any mollying bitch who betrays us.”

  Aspinall’s heart contracted to a tight fist. “Betray you?”

  “Ye cud be a spy,” said Miss Pasiphäe.

  “Or one of Southcott’s servants,” suggested Donne. “Hadn’t you better tell us your name?”

  “I already told you,” the physician protested weakly.

  “Yer real name,” growled Jameson.

  The tavern seeming to be unbuilding itself around him. Aspinall plucked a name from the air, the first to occur. That of a childhood tormentor.

  Jameson glanced across at Miss Pasiphäe. “Mr Amos, you’re a customs inspector. What do you do when you hear an untruth?”

  “You try tae get behind tha’ statement,” the other replied.

  “Last chance,” Jameson said, “before we call Kitson. He has a particular talent for getting behind things.”

  When he finally said his name out, it was a relief.

  “Not so hard, was it,” said Thomas. “And how does Mr Aspinall make ends meet?”

  The physician blanched. There must be dozens of Aspinalls in London, but only one Aspinall the mad-doctor. Word was certain to get back. His fiancée might understand his motives for his nocturnal visit, but her father wouldn’t.

  “Why so coy?” Jameson said. “I’m a fusilier, Thomas and Donne are waiters, Francis is a sentinel in the foot guards, or so he claims. When I first met him he was growing something in Mr Sabine’s garden.” The others passed sniggers around the table. “We like to know a bit about each other. Just the bare facts.”

  Aspinall stared at them. Tell them a story. Any story. The one about his second cousin, come back from the Sugar Islands, about her dead mother’s silk dresses, puce-coloured and full of pins. Tell them about Wood’s Close, about the Windsor chair suspended from the ceiling in the basement, how their kind are strapped in and spun till they vomit, or void their bowels. That this is considered progress. Tell them about Professor Ashcroft, who thinks sodomite dogs deserve torture, not treatment; who refuses to pander to sin as if it were a mental derangement. Or Dr Ellesmere, who calls their vice crimen contra naturam, and says their contagion will seep through the city and raise a new Sodom. That the consequence of their awful fruit must be heavenly vengeance, for isn’t the Bible clear? That molly men give birth to themselves, clutching at each other’s yards – that there’s no heart in them left to look on the Sacrament. That their desires are like apples that fall unto dust when touched.

  He looked round at the faces, and wondered if he’d said any of it aloud.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw the bartender was lumbering towards them, apron dangling from one hand.

  “My father’s a baker,” he blurted.

  “Not that fud baker in Keynsham market, whae sells hot bread full of darnel? Couldnae stop jiggin’ for twa days.”

  The bartender was unholy in the half-light. “Any sisters wishing to navigate the windward passage should present their passports.” He looked at Aspinall as if enjoying a view.

  The others fished out their membership cards. With fumbling fingers, Aspinall found his.

  V.S.C. He was in it now. Up to his neck.

  19. Country Gentleman

  The attic corridor was feebly lit by recessed lanterns. Aspinall walked with uncertain steps to the first of the doorless lofts and oratories. The fusty room was packed with men playing chambermaids to men on low truckle beds. He fought the instinct to retreat. But he’d come to take the temperature of Parlez-Vous’ sickness – to understand the heat itself. He told himself that.

  Where the devil had Donne and the others got to?

  On the nearest couch – dear Lord – a bearded club member lay beside a toga-clad youth; an ivory totem caught the lamplight in a way that seemed at odds with its unyielding geometries. Each pull saw it extracted to its full length.

  ––––– get it from rubbing

  Further inside, Aspinall spotted the visored dandy from earlier in the saloon. The youth was completely naked now, his yard describing an extended arc.

  ––––– I’ve heard it comes from sharing spoons

  A moustachioed nurse, perched on the edge of a bed at Aspinall’s knees, looked up. “White’s a lucky lass,” he whispered. “The Country Gentleman a generous puss-master. He pays in gold sovereigns.”

  ––––– Mr Howard’s pencil’s broken

  A friar burst into the loft, cassock hoiked up, his appendage comically hangdog.

  “Show us yer bumfiddle!” roared the nurse.

  ––––– Cum ’ere, m’ sly boy

  Aspinall stared blankly. There was nothing to be learned here. Just men rutting like beasts. With a shudder, he backed out into the corridor, meaning to make for the stairs, when a tide of flesh hit him, carrying him further into the hanging shadows.

  ––––– remember to use me honourably

  When the rush stopped, he found himself at the entrance to a smaller attic filled with men huddled over an enormous clothes chest, shuffling identities in a rack-jack of activity. In the phantasmagoric half-light, chequered ribbons and furbelow scarves floated in the sticky air. A gasman rose a milkmaid, a rouged drayman in laced shoes fought a female grenadier for a green hat edged with bright blue quilling.

  ––––– A dirty thing wet becomes more dirty

  Aspinall spied Francis and Amos clinching on a sofa. He turned away, just as a golden-haired youth seemed to step out of the brick wall into the little well of light cast by one of the set-back lamps.

  “Come ride a rump,” the boy whispered. “Come do the story.” He undid his breeches, showing Aspinall a callous, heavy-skinned thing.

  ––––– buried in dung like a limbeck!

  “There you are!” Donne came hurrying up, looking warily at the youth. “How do, Miss Selima?”

  ––––– Take it out, see how sticky I am

  The plump man seized Aspinall’s hand with a sense of purpose. “This way . . . Thomas is looking for you.”

  They’d gone a few paces when their way was barred by a tall figure in clergyman’s robes, his black, oiled hair drawn up into an imposing cowlick. Aspinall felt Donne’s body tense through his hand.

  “Parson – ” Donne began.

  ––––– honest as a banknote

  “Where’s White?” the other demanded, running a hand through his hair. “I know you’ve seen him, don’t pretend otherwise.” His eyes were red and peery.

  ––––– Taffy was a Welshman, ar hyd y nos

  Donne hesitated, then pointed to a narrow passage that led away sharply.

  “God be with you in all things,” said Parson with a grunt.

  “Don’t fret,” Donne whispered, when the clergyman had strode off. “He won’t find White there.”

  ––––– next to the pastry-cook’s at Charing Cross

  Aspinall looked at him. “Who on earth is this White fellow?”

  “For Parson,” Donne answered, “Ensign White is his personal paramour.” His pudgy cheeks twitched. “I don’t think the Country Gentleman sees it quite that way.”

  “The Country Gentleman?”

  “The cit in a visor,” Donne said. “Rich as Croesus. No one knows his real name. Wouldn’t want to know it. Wouldn’t be healthy.”

  ––––– Coo-ee, it’s the gobbler!

  Francis appeared at Aspinall’s side. “Did you say Country Gentleman?” The guardsman rubbed his hands together. “Every
one’s guessing. Assizes judge or King’s Counsel is my guess.”

  ––––– hungry dogs will eat dirty puddings

  “Meybe ah know exactly who he is,” Thomas said, approaching with a yellow false gown draped over one arm. “Let’s just say he’s a lusty fellow, and leave it at that.” He leaned over and – shockingly – nuzzled at Aspinall’s neck.

  The physician recoiled in horror, but found Donne had him in a firm grip.

  “Come on, you,” the plump man said, pinning his arms to his side, ignoring his protests, steering him towards the back lofts.

  ––––– fat as a pork chop!

  20. Molly Rites

  According to Fielding’s Treatise of Midwifery, dedicated to assuaging the sufferings of parturition, the calamities that may beset a physician attending at child-bed number no fewer than one hundred and seventy-two. Strangulation of the infant by umbilical cord, haemorrhaging of the placenta and sloughing of the passages from an impacted head moving like a plough through soft tissues are only three of the more alarming scenarios now being entertained by Doctor Sweet-Lips and his assistant, Mistress Fox.

  It is an unconventional birth.

  On a side table is a bowl of uneaten panado, along with a cup of water, in which half a drachm of powdered nitre has been mixed. The child’s mother exhibits all the signs of scarcely imaginable anguish, but between deep, heaving groans she remembers to ask after her child. Is it blue? Can it be saved? Someone laughs. Mistress Fox, wearing the high-crowned black hat of her profession, makes practiced soothing noises, waving back the twenty or more bystanders who have taken a step closer to the bed. Give the doctor room, she commands. The doctor or Doctor Sweet-Lips looks up from Fielding’s Treatise and frowns at the friends, relatives and hangers-on.

  It is by no means extraordinary in this modern age for a man to deliver a child. Thousands of doctors up and down the country usher infants safely over the threshold every week, although many – perhaps most – husbands, deep down, foster a prejudice against male presences at such intimate quarters. It’s not so long ago that apothecary-surgeons conducted deliveries from behind screens, or called instructions from adjoining rooms, relying on the female kin for descriptions of how the child lay in the uterus, the strain on the perineum, the extent of dilation.