It happened some hours later, a mile along the bridle path from the Tatsfield Road; it happened to him as it happened to travelers all over England.
The shadow detached itself from the loom of dark between the poplars and became the outline of a horseman. “Stand,” it said roughly, “and deliver.”
Lance’s mouth went dry, and his lips skinned back from his teeth and began a subtle quiver. His horse stood in shadow as deep as the highwayman’s; had he been ten feet back or ten feet farther on, he would have been in pale moonlight.
He couldn’t be seen.
The highwayman said, unmistakably cocking a horse pistol, “I’ll not shoot thee, Lanky me lad, if thee’ll talk to me. Wipe me away once more and so help me God on the cross ye’re a dead man, and there’ll be two o’ us, for I’m dead already.”
When he could—and it was a long tense time before he could—Lance cried, “Piggott! Piggott—is that really you?”
11.
“YE MIGHT SAY IT’S really I,” said the old man, “and you might not. It’s what’s left o’ me, at any rate.”
“Ah, that’s you, right enough. Come into the moon so I may see you … Piggott, you look like hell itself.”
“Ay, I live there.” He looked at the pistol and put it away. “It ain’t loaded, but coo, ain’t it got a nice loud cock?”
“It has that; are you really a highwayman?”
“Na, lad; I just wanted to see thee, and ye’re always more yourself when you’re angry.”
Lance had not realized how angry he was until he was moved to laugh at this and found it difficult. “Well by God,” he said in a resurgence of astonishment, “Piggott … where have you been, Piggott?
“Hup town, down town, all around the square. Ah, lad, it doesn’t matter. I … give up the carriage. Got a nice price for ’er too. Came to my sister’s daughter for a while. Fell ill a bit. You know; the years go by … just now I’m up from Ickworth.”
“Ickworth?” Something stirred in Lance’s memory; he set it aside. He was going to speak but was interrupted by a spasm of coughing—deep, wrenching, sickly coughs, frightening to hear.
“Touch of frost,” said Piggott after a time. “Might we move along, Lanky?”
“Yes, we’d better … Piggott,” he demanded, “why did you leave me?”
“It was what you wanted.”
“I never said that!”
“D’ye recall that night, Lanky?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then do you tell me what came about.”
“Why, I went to Blanton House. When I came out you were gone. That’s all.”
They rode in silence for a time. Piggott had nothing to say. At length Lance blurted, “You were deuced stubborn about something, I’ll tell you that.”
“What was it?”
“Whatever it was,” said Lance straightly, “it wasn’t worth your walking out when I needed you.”
“You can’t remember, lad, can you?”
“If I can’t, it’s because it doesn’t matter. Didn’t matter.”
“I remember. You had it I’d betrayed ye, made a gold sovereign to find your lodgings for yon trollop o’ Miss Chudleigh’s.”
“Oh. Oh yes.” A long wait, while Piggott, lying face-down in the saddle, coughed, and coughed, and coughed. When he sat up again, shoulders limp, Lance said, “Someone told her.”
“Ay.”
“It wasn’t you, then.”
“Told ye so that night.”
“But dash it, I—”
“Na, Lanky, say no more about it,” growled the old man. “I’m not ’ere to make ye sorry or ’umble; ye’re not, and ye wouldn’t be; that’s just you, eh? As to the rights and wrongs o’ that special argyment, we could ’ave at the truth ’till we broke it free, and us all tired and blue i’ the face, and we’d only find that the argyment ’ad nothin’ to do with what ’appened. What I mean, if it ’adn’t been the Axelrood matter, it’d ’a been somethin’ else. Your time ’ad come, as I always knew it would—your big step up, though I’ll admit I was slow to see it, thinkin’ all along that it’d be a Courtenay matter, and not some little hanky-panky wi’ Lib Chudleigh an’ ’er affairs. Any’ow—you ’ad to reach a time when any Piggott was too much Piggott, an’ that was it. Thinkin’ I’d betrayed ye was a reason, but you’d no need of a reason.”
“I’ll not listen to this!” Lance shouted. “Why would I ever want to do that? Who fed me and clothed me from the cradle up; who led me to apprenticeship in the law; who was my coachman and confidant and helpmate from the time I was born until that night in Holcomb—who but you?”
“An’ there ye give all the reasons why you’d ’ad enough. Ye’ve a sniggling suspicion in ye that part o’ your blood stinks o’ Bermondsey or worse, and when ye saw ye might move upward an’ away, ye wanted nothing about ye to remind ye of it. And who but the old fool who’d done those things you’ve listed could remind ye more?”
“You’ve no right to speak to me that way!”
“I’ve a dead man’s right,” said Piggott hollowly.
“Will you stop saying that? Are you trying to sound like Mr. Barrowbridge?”
“I know nothin’ of Barrowbridge. ’E disappeared out o’ Bermondsey years ago. As to my bein’ a dead man, ’tis true enough, Lanky. Na—I don’t want your sympathy and ’tisn’t that I’ve come ’ere for. I know the signs; my ruddy lungs are gone and I shan’t last the bleedin’ winter.”
“Well then, what have you come for?” Lance had had very nearly enough of this disturbing conversation, and his tone showed it.
“Let me ask you first: where do ye stand just now on the matter of the Courtenay title?”
“What business is it of—” and Lance’s voice was cut off by the old man’s hoarse cry. It was a wordless statement of impatience, frustration, physical and emotional anguish, ending in a series of weak coughs, all that the emptied lungs could yield up. For an appalling time then there was no inhalation at all; it came at last cautiously, a meticulous attempt to ward off paroxysm. Lance was badly frightened by it; it was an unnerving thing to stand so close to the dying.
When Piggott could speak again, it was in a hoarse whisper. “Ye whelp! Ye’ll bandy words and stand on your dignity and excuse and delude yersel’ while I rot before your ruddy eyes. I’ve not time nor patience to gambol wi’ ye; I’ve that to tell ye which can mean your bloody fortune; ye can ’ear me out or ye can leave me now and go back to your muckin’ little shed i’ the wilderness.” The man was outraged and yes, certainly dying; old, hurt, fevered, finished.
“Fortune?” asked Lance.
They plodded through the fitful moon-shadows for a time while Piggott went through his careful series of shallow inhalations, persuading his lungs to bear with him just a little longer. “God help me,” he gasped, “but I don’t care to finish what I’ve started.”
Another long pause. It had grown colder, and their breath streamed like scarves back over their shoulders. Lance waited while Piggott struggled over something unseen. “Na then,” he said, more like his old self, “wi’ ye answer me?”
“Of course,” said Lance gently.
“About the Courtenay matter then: how d’ye fare?”
“I’ve never lost sight of it,” said Lance. “Yet it’s not a simple thing, nor overly hopeful. I’d stand a better chance were I quietly and decently renowned for something; connected well and publicly respected. Also I must wait on the death of Sir Ffoulkes Courtenay. A harmless old gossip he is, but overly fond of genealogy. He can’t last much longer. In short—I progress, but slowly.”
“And it remains a ’ope, an’ only that. Good then; for did that seem a greater thing for ye than anything else, I might be silent now. Na then, ’earken: I’m just from Ickworth, in Suffolk, and bear ye the tidings of the death of the Earl.”
“What’s that to me? … That’d be Bristol. No! I say!” Lance ejaculated, as his brains stopped feeling and began functioning. “George W
illiam Hervey, eh? Which at long last gives Augustus John, Sir Cuckold, the title Elizabeth Chudleigh married him for! Earl of Bristol! Well, that’s one she missed; and much good it does him, to boot.”
“Ah wouldn’t speak so of your da,” said Piggott.
The moments of uncertainty in a human life are uncountable as the stars. Each moment of decision is a-flicker with uncertainties, for consciousness itself is only the ability to choose between reactions under a stimulus, and that instant before the instant of choice is the very color of uncertainty, be the choice wife or wine, war, wig or wimple. The moments of utter and unalloyed certainty are correspondingly rare: they are unforgettable, epochal, catastrophic, for they strike the consciousness with a bolt of substance disparate from life, energetic and unfamiliar. It was such a moment that Lance now experienced; he knew, without knowing how he knew, that of all things in time he needed not, he need not ask Piggott what it was he had just said.
Peel by silken peel, he took down fact upon fact which lay about this thundering statement, separating it like a young spring onion. And at long long last he spoke without conscious direction of his words, barely to be heard above the soft clump of the pacing horses and the whispering of the casual breeze through frozen hedgerows: “I,” he breathed, “am a dirty son of a bitch.”
“Ah, never that, lad! Ye’ve never been dirty!”
Lance began to laugh. He laughed till he hurt, he laughed till he cried, he laughed until, literally, he could not sit his horse and he must slide off and hang to the saddle-pouches, gasping. And in time it appeared he was weeping; he himself could not have said just what this retching, wrenching, wailing thing was when it wearied and left him.
He, son and once lawful heir of Augustus John Hervey, just now turned Earl of Bristol …
He, child of Elizabeth Chudleigh and her mad, hidden, poisonous marriage to a foolish boy …
He, barrister’s boy, trapped into manipulating that marriage into a nullity, and himself into the very bastardy he had carried like a curse for all the years it did not exist …
He, mountebank and impersonator, searching for a title by chicanery when he was born to one …
He, who must, in filling in the details in this structure, learn more about himself, and who could not know how to prepare himself for any more such quakes, and yet who must, who must …
“How long have you known?”
“All your life.”
“I think … you’d … you’d better tell me all of it,” said Lance faintly. He climbed back to the saddle, Piggott riding forward to assist, then falling back to cough.
“There’s little to tell, ’Twas in ’43 I saw her first, at the Venetian ambassador’s ball. Masquerade it was, great costly beast of an affair. I was footman at the time to milord Bath. ’E’s a sticky old gout-gait today, but ’e was a boundin’ billy of a youngster then, full o’ the devil and a ’appy thing to come to any gathering. I used to make ’im laugh; we ’ad a jolly sort o’ friendship, me keeping to my place o’course, but jolly for a’ that. Anyway, me an’ the rest of the foot- an’ coachmen were loungin’ about in the back kitchens, soppin’ up ’fores an’ afters—you know, things the lords an’ lidy’s ’adn’t wanted and things they’d never see—when right in the middle o’ us all up pops the young Earl o’ Bath: ‘Piggott,’ ’e says, ‘I’ve no right to do such a thing but upon my soul I’d never forgive myself did I not let you see this,’ and off ’e ’auls me to the edge o’ the servin’ doors where I might see out; and a good thing ’e did it then, for five seconds later it were four deep wi’ every servant and staff in half o’ London, groom’s boy to upstairs maid.
“The ballroom was grand as you please, a-crawl wi’ the ’ighest nobility of England and ’er allies; where I was was behind George ’imself, that’s ’is present mad majesty’s grandfather; ’e was on a great chair, on a dais, no farther from me than yon poplar tree. And the young Earl, ’e gives me a great nudge in the ribs and a wink, an’ points wiv ’is thumb, and slips out into that pretty crowd. They was dressed like milkmaids an’ ’eathen warriors an’ statuary and all whatnot; but nobody was ever dressed like what I saw when I looked where ’e pointed. ‘Gadzooks!’ I cried right out, ‘but ’ere’s a saucy bawd!’—eh, I couldn’t ’elp myself, and I’ll take my oath the King heard me, but ’e paid it no mind prolly thinkin’ me only a bishop or some such ’angin about be’ind ’im.
“For there makin’ ’er entrance was our Miss Chudleigh, bold as all innocence; and where all the mighty there was dressed up in their finest fantasy, she was dressed down in her barest fact. She ’ad on a sweepin’ great skirt that ’id as much as a gust o’ wind on a fine day; around ’er waist a bitty garland of flowers; and all the rest of ’er was dressed in white skin an’ pretty hair.
“There was a thunderin’ plague-struck great hush while those who could take their eyes off ’er looked to the King to see what ’e’d make of it. ’E was getting old then but ’e rose to the occasion. Up ’e got and stood for her as I think ’e wouldn’t do for a churchman, and began clappin’ ’is hands. So everyone else did, an’ I did too, an’ it was while she was comin’ down the long lane the nobility opened for ’er that the word buzzed back be’ind me and the ’elp come crowdin’ fit to squirt me into ’igh society like a ruddy apple seed. I stopped applaudin’ and ’ung on to the door-frame with both ’ands and a leg, and watched ’er come to the dais and sink down in as pretty a’ dyin’-swan deep curtsey as you’d want to see. The King asks ’er what she represents; I might’ve told him clear enough, but she said somethin’ of ’er own: ‘Iphigenia, your Majesty,’ she says from the floor, and to this day, I ’aven’t found out what one of those is, but I’d like a pair of ’em for pets. Any’ow, down steps ’is Majesty and raises ’er up and ’ands ’er ’is great gold gobbet of a watch, and the ball goes on.
“Betimes I’m back i’ th’ scullery tryin’ to press back my bulgin’ eyeballs, all of two hours away and still full of Iphigenia, when up pops my young lord Bath again. ‘Piggott’ ’e says, ‘do you slip around to the west doorway and up on the covered carriage wi’ th’ black pair you’ll see there. I’ll be out wi’ a passenger for ye; if we don’t slip ’er out quiet-like, every blood in London will be upon ’er like pack-dogs. Take ’er where she wants to go, an’ Piggott,’ ’e says, ’mind your manners or ye’ll answer to me.’
“I did as bid, and I’m no sooner up on this fine black trap when out ’e comes with ’er, wrapped up in a gentleman’s cloak, and pops ’er in, and off I go like a scraped-bottom sloop in a full gale. ‘Where to, milady?’ says I, and, ‘Oh,’ she sings, ‘anywhere, anywhere, and drive faster.’
“So out we go and up to ’Ampstead—ay, clear up there, and she shouts to me to drive out on the ’Eath, and once out there she must stop and leap out o’ th’ carriage and run about i’ the moonlight, leavin’ the cloak, and me treated to the sight a second time, Piggott alone granted what all the ’ighborn ’ad to share.
“She were ’alf mad wi’ excitement, what with ’er mad costume an’ the King’s watch an’ all the dukes and earls snufflin’ at ’er like pigs at whey; then she’d been snatched away at the very peak o’ things and it left ’er drunk in a drunker way than every brandy smote a body. ‘Coachman!’ she cries to me, ‘coachman, dance wi’ me!’ an’ ’olds out ’er arms i’ th’ moonlight, an’ I did, I did. It were cold out there on the dewy down, but ’er flesh were ’ot an’ dry and she ’ad sparks in ’er eyes. An’ when I touched ’er first I thought she’d faint, for she trembled all over and fell against me an’ ’er eyes rolled up like a dead man’s for a moment. Eh! but I danced wi’ ’er … mad, it were. And wi’ th’ last grain o’ sense left to me I recalled what milord ‘ad said about my manners, an’ scooped ’er up and flung ’er back into the carriage and hurried back to cobbled streets again. Betimes she thumped an’ I peeked down at ’er and she was swathed to the nose in the cloak again.
“ ‘Coachman,’ she says,
‘what’s your name?’ an’ I told her; ‘Piggott,’ she says, ‘you’ve been good to me, better than I wanted ye to be, an’ I must reward ye. What would ye most like from me?’
“Now I must tell ye, lad, that she ’ad a bold an’ jokin’ way about ’er, that you knew she could ’ave a jollity and take one too. And before I knew what I was sayin’ I blurted out, ‘To ’ave a child of yours to call me father’; then I ’urries to say that failin’ that I’d take ’er promise that she’d never tell a soul about this madness just now on the ’Eath, lest we both find ourselves wi’ a shirtful of bees. ‘Piggott,’ says she, ‘ye shall get your wish.’
“I thought she meant my second wish, but ’twas the first she granted, not six months later, and there ye were, Lanky my bucko, in the arms of the most surprised footman that ever drew breath or got a three-minute visit at midnight from a veiled lady wi’ a package.
“Ay, she was something to see in the old days …”
The old days faded, and the old voice faded, and the moon faded away behind a cloud.
“She was married then?”
“Ay, that she was, and all a deep secret. She ’adn’t a farthin’, and Augustus Hervey had nothin’ but ’opes an’ a pretty baby face. ’E was four years ’er junior, y’know. After the ball young Bath pulled the right ropes and she found ’erself Maid of Honour in th’ ruddy retinue of Augusta, Princess of Wales. She ’ad to keep ’er marriage secret to keep ’er job. As for the babe—well!”
“But—just to give it away to a footman who made a joke …”
“That was ’er way. And she didn’t want ye or need ye. She … didn’t forget ye, though. ’Twas ’er had me put you in wi’ Barrowbridge. I couldn’t say why. I think she ’ad a run-in once wi’ him. Might be she thought any child o’ hers would cut ’im down. Might be she thought to use you against ’im one day. ’E never knew it, I can tell you that.”
“You mean she saw you again, talked to you?”
“Never. ’Twas a foreign-lookin’ chap came ’round wi’ the message. I could do as she said or not, an’ if not I ’ad a hint I’d be thumped about accidental by four or five of this chap’s friends. She ’ad no need to threaten, but she did.”
I, Libertine Page 16