I, Libertine

by Theodore Sturgeon

  Almost in spite of himself, he smiled at that, and her answering smile was immediate and ingenuous. He rose and threw off the cloak, casting open his coat as well, so that the fine brocade of his waistcoat might radiate Courtenay instead of Piggott. With the gesture he found his tongue. “I am, as you see, overwhelmed, Miss Axelrood. Had I known you were coming, I—”

  “Had you known, Captain, then I shouldn’t have come at all. I meant it to be a surprise.”

  “It is a surprise,” he acknowledged, knowing this to be the most inadequate sentence he had ever spoken. She laughed happily and took three or four strokes with the comb. Lance heard the drums beating again. Eardrums. He had an irresistible urge to explain himself. “This horrible place,” he began, “it’s this Piggott chap’s room, as you have—”

  “Yes, of course,” she said warmly, “and you’ve arranged to stop here during his absence while you investigate certain unpleasant matters in Bermondsey. I do not question your conduct, Captain, and I shall not. You, in turn, need not question mine … we are both here. It is strange, it is unexpected, it is undoubtedly scandalous; but it’s true.”

  With a shade of his practiced courtliness he said, “To make it true I shall have to understand one thing—how did you arrange to be here before me? For I came directly across London Bridge, and you did not overtake me. … Or shall we make this a dream after all?”

  “By no means,” she twinkled. “I came by Westminster and the Kent road, right across Southwark.”

  “So far,” he breathed, “… so quickly.”

  “So eagerly,” she whispered.

  He found his gaze locked with hers, and suddenly he could not break it away; yet her saw her, all of her, as she rose and crossed to him. “So it’s quite real, quite, quite real and true,” she murmured. From the bed she took his cloak. “Where do you hang this?”

  “Just so,” he choked, pressing it from her hands and letting it fall.

  She had unusual ears. The lobes were not free, yet one could not know this without touching them, and then they presented a warm smooth channel from jaw to nape-side. Along this his ring-finger found a half-inch of ecstasy to travel and travel. He buried his face in the hollow of her shoulder and traced the channel, seeing it with the pad of his fingertip, seeing is misted and phantasmagoric with the lightest of contact, seeing it sharply with firmness, seeing it as through crooked glass with just a little cruelty in his finger.

  He was troubled, in a way life had familiarized him with. For advantages are hard to come by, and the best of them are those which one makes for oneself, and they are best because they are advantages one can understand. When the skies open and pour down golden sovereigns, one may pick some up and own them, and spend some and profit thereby; but if one is Lance Courtenay, one does this anxiously: I did not earn this or make it; I do not understand what it means and doubtless I shall have to pay a greater price than any I’d have agreed to had I been asked first. Which made him, in this magic moment, feel lucky indeed, but not happy.

  At length he asked, “Why?”

  She laughed softly. “Because I wanted to talk to you. Haha! You will forget that answer to that question, and then you will remember it, and then you will come to me and ask me what I meant, and all I shall say is—‘I wanted to talk to you.’ And then you will understand, and be angry.”

  “Not angry at you!”

  “Ah no. At you.”

  He raised his head and looked into her eyes. He saw in them two candle flames; the twin vertical beams made her excessively feline. He liked it. He dropped his head and fell to stroking her ear again. “Talk to me, then.”

  “You know ever so much about the law.” It was not a question, and he did not deny it. “And,” she said, “you know Miss Chudleigh.”

  “I had not thought of them in the same breath.” She giggled. “You’ll come to know her quite well one day, I think. Would you like that?”

  He thought of Elizabeth, Countess of Bristol (if she ever was) and of Elizabeth, Duchess of Kingston (if she should ever be) and then of Elizabeth Chudleigh, who had charmed Bath and Hamilton and even Frederick the Second, King of Prussia, whom they called the Great; who had done enough, heaven knows, to be scourged out of any village, and yet who was accepted still in the highest circles of society—even at court. Yes, he would like to know her quite well. But he would like to be very cautious too. The mighty fall; the high fall farthest; woe betide what they fall on. And too, there was the matter of common decency.

  “I’d like to know more of her, before knowing her well.”

  “Then ask me.”

  Ask? Ask what? He thought of the coachman’s rollicking account, and all but mimicked it then and there; instead, he laughed. “Is it true she attended the Venetian Ambassador’s Ball stark-naked?”

  “It is not. She wore a … costume.”

  “Ah? I heard that, and that his Majesty gave her a fifty-guinea watch—something one might call a public tribute,” he added, having found the gentry responsive always to quips about taxes.

  “That too is a lie,” said the girl. “It was thirty-five.”

  “She is a much maligned lady, then.”

  “She is. Now I suppose you are going to ask me about the Duke.”

  “Many people do.”

  “They are dear friends. Why should there be talk? It seems so ungenerous … they would, if they could, still it forever by marrying; it is their dearest wish. Why must they be termed indecent, when their aim is decency?”

  “But they have not married.”

  “Ay,” she said sadly, “and therefore the scullery crucifies them.”

  “The scullery which says she is wed to Augustus Hervey—the future Earl of Bristol.”

  “Even so.”

  “Well,” he demanded, “is she?”

  “If she were, or even if it … seemed so … would there be a remedy?”

  “Making it quite possible for her to marry Kingston? Ay, but for that you’d seek a footpad’s counsel, not mine.”

  “You distress me,” she said faintly, turning her head away like a schoolgirl seeing blood.

  “If she divorced … na, Bristol would never stand the noise. Eh? I thought so. … And if Augustus Hervey divorced her, no littlest curate nor biggest bishop would wed her to Kingston. Unless … She couldn’t manage a dispensation, or some …”

  “She has too many enemies,” said Miss Axelrood sadly, “like all great beauties.”

  “Then there’s no hope for it; she’ll have to wait it out. And Kingston by far the older man. Too bad.”

  “Oh dear. I thought … I thought you might …”

  He sat up on the edge of the bed and took her strongly by the shoulders, though he did not move her “Why me? Why did you come to me for this?”

  She glanced quickly about the shabby room. “We—I thought perhaps your friend, Master Higger-Piggott, might quietly discover a way. Isn’t he apprenticed to Mr. Barrowbridge? And isn’t Mr. Barrowbridge quite the cleverest and most learned man of law of his time?”

  “He—I’m told he is,” said Lance. An unpleasant confusion curled within him, like the first smoke before sudden flame. “If Mr. Barrowbridge could help, surely Miss Chudleigh need only—”

  But she was slowly shaking her head as he spoke; and his voice trailed off. She said, “Years ago they had an unhappy meeting. I know of it, but then, I don’t gossip. A very tragic story, poor man … and it were unwise even to mention Miss Chudleigh’s name to him. I had hoped that your friend might, without mentioning …” In a sudden change of voice she asked, “What of this young Higger-Piggott? What do you know of him? Who is he? Where does he come from?”

  He dropped his eyes. “You … seem to know so very much already,” he said unsteadily.

  “But tell me, Captain Courtenay. I would rather hear this from you than from anyone I know.”

  “You’re playing with me!”

  She put her long hand against his cheek. It felt very cool and s
trong. “Have I played with you?”

  “I’ll … ask Higger-Piggott when I see him.” He sounded almost surly.

  “Tell me now. I’m very interested in Master Lancaster Higger-Piggott and his father the coachman.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “My dear, my dear,” she soothed. He looked at her, but her face was only solicitous. If she had smiled, or gloated—if he had even suspected anything of the sort, he might have … might have … but surely there was nothing of the sort there. And her questions guarded him, always, in their strange way.

  “He’s … he was brought up by a coachman, yes. Actually he’s of … gentle birth. Perhaps noble. There’s a great mystery there. He is in law because he means to find out, one day, just who he is. No one knows of this, of course—not even old Barrowbridge. A very studious chap. He’ll be a gentleman one day.” He smiled suddenly.

  “I’m sure he will. Do you like him?”

  “Eh? Why—yes, I rather do.”

  “I could come to like him too, I think,” she said.

  They had a silent moment. He had never felt such perfect understanding with anyone in his life before. But then, he had been close to very few people before.

  “Now,” she said, “tell me about Captain Courtenay.”

  He flushed, and laughed. “Oh, there’s very little to Captain Courtenay. He’s—what you see, no more.”

  “It’s a good thing to be, a Courtenay.”

  “Yes, it is; but why do you say that?”

  “Well, there are so many of you. England’s full of Courtenays, and in Devon they outnumber the hedgerows.” She tilted her head. “Safety in numbers.”

  “In a way. I … don’t commune very much with my … kin, though.”

  “And then,” she said thoughtfully, “there’s the old story of the exiled Earl who died in Rome …”

  “Padua,” he said immediately, “Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon. That was 1556. His ancient patent as earl omitted the words de corpore suo, which means that a male not heir of his body could inherit. William, a sixth cousin once removed, never claimed. There’ve been Earls of Devon since who were not Courtenays, and Courtenays who were baronets and viscounts without protest. There’s an earldom waiting for the right Courtenay, should he be able to prove his line, and should he, first, be a man the Lords would notice. Meanwhile, the story is known, and knowing people do not offend any Courtenay, lest one day that Courtenay be admitted to the House. And then for the old estates in Ireland, and sweet Powderham in Devon … and mayhap a fine marriage; the Courtenays were famous for the great marriages they made.”

  Again she touched his flushed cheek with her long cool hand, and again said, “It’s a good thing to be, a Courtenay.” She kissed him sweetly. “I think if a man had all the families in England to choose from, he could not have picked more wisely.”

  He laughed uncertainly. “Such a man would have no name at all to begin with.”

  “Then he’d not be cursed with a low one. To choose a finer name and title for oneself is, I think, a worthy enterprise. After all,” she said, laughing, “we women have been doing it for some time.”

  He laughed. “Yet, to be born with—”

  “A great name is a proud thing to be born with. But ’twould be a pity to be able to look only downward, even if all the rest of the world looked up at you. I’d rather be an Axelrood with a future than a Hanover with a past.”

  “You’re an … amazing child.”

  “Child is it! How old are you, Lance Courtenay, Earl of Devon to be and Lord of Powderham to come?”

  “Three and twenty.”

  “Then we’re a year and a bit apart, and you call me child!”

  “You’re not angry!” He really didn’t know.

  “Does an officer—does a gentleman play with children?”

  “Yes!” he cried in irritation.

  “Like this?” And then she looked into his face and laughed so hard that his shocked puzzlement disappeared and he lay and laughed with her. ‘Tell me,” she said when she could, “what is it you want? I mean, your most secret secret.”

  “Why, to be—to have—”

  “Na! Those are ambitions. I met a viscountess once who told me that of all the things in the wide world what she wanted most was to dance naked in the sun. She never had and she knew she never would, but it was her dream. Have you no such dreams?”

  “No!”

  “Everyone has.”

  “You?”

  “Even I. I’ll tell you; but I’ve asked you first.”

  He thought for a moment and then chuckled. “I’ll not tell you that.”

  “Why?”

  “You wouldn’t understand me. And if you did you—you’d never believe I’m not that sort of chap.”

  “You are not and you never shall be. I do understand; have I not told you about the dancing viscountess?”

  It was warm and quiet and comforting to be there. He was unaccustomed to searching within himself for any values save right and wrong; in a way he regarded other concentrations as indulgences, very nearly sins. For a man had his way to make in the world, and the world was not, by and large, a friendly place, and it was impatient with idlers who sat by the way and told themselves their own dreams.

  On the other hand there was little pleasure in his life. His daily tasks certainly could not be so described, and his occasional forays into elevated society across the river were not pleasure-jaunts. There were times, then, when he gave himself five minutes of fugue, and rested from the very act of living. From these he always started up guiltily, and wished that he had not done it, and searched angrily for that which he should have been doing instead, and thereafter tried to expunge the vice from his conscience.

  This was the very first time anyone had ever asked to share such a thing of his; this removed some of its viciousness. It was yet another example of the elusiveness of the good and evil which a man must understand to orient himself in the world. Anything sole, solitary, unshared, hoarded and secret can hardly be good. Its evil is ameliorated the instant it is approved by another; those things which are accepted of all men are what all men term good, now or later. In the light of ambition, one sees oneself an intimate of some growing good, one which will spread and be acceptable to all mankind, or at very least to the masters thereof; and lo! one finds oneself accepted too, as its exponent. So much for the light of ambition; it is seldom that indulgence casts the same glow. In the light of indulgence he saw himself—

  “I … I see myself sometimes as one who holds all laws of man and morals at defiance,” he whispered, while she leaned close to hear. “I can find a moment, from time to time, briefly and a long while apart, when my mirror shows me such a one. He is no revolutionary, and he asks no help, wants no cohorts. The laws he breaks are not to be broken for themselves, as a mob might tear down walls, purely because they stand. No; he does what he does without regard to laws, with them or against them as the special case might dictate to him. He takes, he uses, he appropriates, he destroys as the whim suits him, without conscience and with no direction save that of his appetites. These are many, and he treasures them all.

  “He takes never too much, no one thing ever too often, but lives with his appetites, keeping them all alive, never destroying the flavor of any one of them, never permitting one to command the others or him. His search is for more of them—more appetites to isolate and keep alive, pruned and orderly as a formal garden. He has escaped what plagues me, and everyone I know—the elevation of self to higher regard of mankind. He is free because he needs to be no more than he is. I say, ‘I must be more …” and ‘I must have more …’ but he is free; he says only, ‘I am I.’ He is the compleat libertine. And in those rare moments I see him in the mirror, making some gracious gesture for the pleasure of its graciousness, and he says, ‘I, libertine…’ ”

  He glanced quickly at her face, and for the second time that night the air was thick with the violence she could trigger with a s
ingle syllable of laughter. As before he met only a great tenderness; and wherever in it there was no understanding, there was the clear wish to understand.

  Yet he defended his folly in telling her: “I’m not that way, you must understand that, I’m not! Perhaps I see the libertine as the very shadow of the things I am not, limned and delineated by the very things I am. For I may not flout laws, written or unwritten; I need them! For me to do what the libertine does would be to cut away each round of my ladder as I met it, climbing.

  “Disaster,” he whispered, all but frightened, “disaster … you see, I am not free, as he is. He is free of morals, of decency, of obedience and respect and loyalty. I may not be free; these things must be solid and permanent as I move amongst them, lest they fall and crush me; and where I can shore them up I must, and where I can rescue them, I must. Above all, men must point to me and say: There goes a decent man. I need that; the libertine does not. He needs only awareness of self, his appetites, and a certain … circumspection. … I’ve never talked like this in my life.”

  “You speak beautifully,” she said, and, “I like your libertine.”

  He smiled. “And my Higger-Piggott.”

  “Ay. Even better. His aims are so similar to yours, and the libertine’s so counter.”

  “You do understand. You do understand me,” he half-sang.

  “I do, or I certainly shouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m so happy you’re here … now, you have a secret for me.”

  “Must I?”

  He nodded. It made her hair move in the candlelight.

  “Ah,” she said, “I could not paint such a picture as yours; my poor tongue hasn’t the skill. What I want … what I want is only to see … how … high … ” She closed her eyes. He watched her fine face on his pillow and was content; if she would speak, he would watch and listen; if she would sleep, he would watch.