Hugh Kenrick

by Edward Cline

  These phenomena comprised the norm for that aspect of London, and were mostly noted, ignored, or forgotten by those for whom they were not the norm. From Hugh’s perspective, that London was the “is”; his London was the “ought.”

  Hugh’s London was a fastidious milieu of fine proportions and elegant craftsmanship; of large, spacious, and airy rooms with carpeted floors, ample candlelight, and gay Chinese wallpaper. Of fireplaces designed by Robert Adam, laden with bronze neoclassical Greek and Roman statuary and flanked by framed botanical prints by Furber and Ehret and theatrical prints by Hayman. Of wide, linen-clad tables set with brilliantly painted Staffordshire porcelain and delicate chinaware from Chelsea, Derby, and Bow. Of stately grand balls and masquerades in the homes of the mighty and powerful. Of leisurely dinners and tea parties with neighbors and acquaintances, serenaded by hired musicians. Of afternoon salons with fellow aristocrats, and often with well-read merchants, manufacturers, and men of commerce and their wives, who, though drawn largely from the ranks of Dissenters and Nonconformists, were beginning to be recognized and granted grudging though civil entrée into polite, refined society by the upper classes, literati, and intelligentsia. It was the laughter, easy conversation, and sophisticated rapport that sparkled in these gatherings which became for Hugh the norm in relations between adults.

  Hugh’s London included many circulating libraries, such as Fancourts, with its forty thousand volumes, and browsing in the second-hand bookstalls in St. Paul’s Churchyard and the Law Courts. It was pristine shops with bow windows that artfully displayed countless novelties and goods. It was family games on rainy afternoons, and, on “glorious days,” excursions up the Thames on private yachts with liveried watermen to row and lunch far upriver at a fashionable inn. In the evenings, it was family theatrics, the putting on of scenes from famous and obscure plays; Hugh himself had played Hamlet at the age of eleven, to the acclaim of his parents and their aristocratic friends. It was trips to the Tower to see exotic animals, and to Vauxhall, Ranelagh Gardens, or the Pantheon to socialize, to listen to orchestras play compositions by Rameau, Vivaldi, and Boyce, to view the work of new artists, to gather gossip or political news, to see and be seen.

  It was the theater, to see The Beggar’s Opera, or The English Dancing Master, or some light farce at the King’s Theatre, and concerts by the Academy of Ancient Music and ballets by Gluck at the Haymarket Theatre. It was Italian opera, some authentically Italian, the rest by Handel. It was attending services at St. Paul’s Cathedral and listening to a heavenly choir. It was the London of scores of clubs, some, like Samuel Johnson’s, built on dominating personalities and composed of men of like mind and scope of wit, and which usually met in taverns to talk about anything that struck the fancy: politics, mathematics, astronomy, America, women, literature, drink. Others, open to anyone who was a devotee to or dilettante in some field of knowledge, art, or science, no matter how general, eclectic, or arcane, usually met in drawing rooms or private libraries.

  Hugh’s London left him little time to himself—to read, to think, to enjoy his own company. He did not much mind his London, but it left him tired and secretly anxious for the day when his parents and uncle would depart for the journey back to Danvers—and he would be left alone, with only a deferential valet and the obliging Mr. Worley to oversee his daily life. But his parents, usually content with rural Danvers, on this occasion could not be sated by all that London had to offer, and so extended their stay by almost three weeks.

  Hugh was taken by his parents to the School for Gentlemen and introduced to Dr. Comyn and his staff of instructors. There Dr. Comyn submitted him to a brief oral examination, audited by his parents and his future mentors. Hugh stood before a massive desk and answered questions put to him by the berobed scholar.

  “What is a serpent, and who invented it?” asked Dr. Comyn.

  “It is a wind instrument, sir,” Hugh answered, “eight feet long when unraveled, and encased in leather. It was invented by Guillaume of Auxerre, in 1590.”

  “Name the ‘good’ emperors of ancient Rome.”

  “There were five, sir: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.”

  “What is pi?”

  “A letter, the sixteenth, in the Greek alphabet. It also serves as a symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, whose value is three-point-fourteen.”

  Dr. Comyn grinned. “Who was Theophilus?” This was a favorite trick question of his. No prospective pupil had ever correctly answered it.

  “Which one, sir?” asked Hugh.

  Dr. Comyn grunted surprise, while one of his instructors muttered, “Bravo!”

  “Any or all, milord.”

  “Theophilus the Presbyter in the eleventh century set down the rules for the building of cathedrals and the design of stained glass. Theophilus, emperor of Byzantium in the ninth century, persecuted thousands of idolaters. He was somewhat mad, sir.”

  Dr. Comyn bestowed a benevolent smile on the boy. “Well, one last test, milord. A mundane one, I fear. Describe the earldom of Danvers.”

  Hugh glanced at his parents, startled by the request. He recited, “The earldom of Danvers consists of the parishes of Danvers, Todd Matravers, Onyxcombe, Cryden Abbas, and Chalkbourne. The first three parishes lie in the heath land, Onyxcombe and Chalkbourne on the chalk downs. They were originally Saxon estates that pledged fealty to William the Norman; each parish sustains a market town of the same name. The earldom is rent roughly in half by the Onyx River, which is formed by the confluence of numerous brooks and streams, which themselves emanate from underground springs in the heights beyond the chalk downs. It is so named because at certain points, and in a particular light, its waters appear black. The Onyx joins the River Piddle some miles west of Poole. Agriculture is the earldom’s chief occupation. Quarrying and fishing are its other chief sources of revenue.”

  Dr. Comyn nodded, smiled, and addressed a beaming Garnet Kenrick. “You would be surprised, your lordship, at how many young gentlemen do not know their own homes.” He extended a hand to Hugh. “You have displayed an admiral stock of knowledge, milord. Welcome to the school.”

  * * *

  From all this whirl of social and familial activity, one incident fixed itself in Hugh’s memory. It occurred at a concert given by a neighboring family of the Kenricks, the Pumphretts, who owned Bucklad House next door to Windridge Court.

  Bucklad House had undergone lengthy renovations, and the Pumphretts wished to mark their completion with a concert, to which were invited a list of London worthies. Lady Chloe, wife of Sir Henoch Pannell—who was Baronet of Marsden in Essex, Surveyor-General of Harwich in Suffolk, Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber, and member for the pocket borough of Canovan in the Commons—was the mover behind this event. A donation of five guineas per person was levied, the receipts to be given to Lady Chloe’s own organization, the Westminster Charity for London Waifs. “She’s doing her penance early,” confided Sir Henoch with sly derision to friends in the Commons who had been invited to the concert, “so that she may enjoy the rest of the season without the encumbrance of conscience. She is essentially a moral woman.”

  The Pumphretts, into whose family Pannell had married shortly after his triumphant return to London following his erasure of the Skelly gang in Cornwall, were the owners of Bucklad House, and had underwritten almost the entire cost of its renovations. Gervase Pumphrett, Lady Chloe’s father, had insisted on this arrangement to ensure that the Pumphretts retained some property in the family’s name and thus prevent Sir Henoch from claiming that his money kept up the place. Sir Henoch had contributed some funds to the rebuilding of its stables. He stayed at Bucklad House when he attended sessions of the Commons or saw to his other official business in the city.

  He and Lady Chloe resided at Pannell Hall in Suffolk, but Sir Henoch had his own modest lodgings in London, in Canovan itself; he was, in fact, that borough’s sole enfranchised resident. Here he rendezvoused with
fellow gamblers, wenches from the street, and courtesans from the best parlors, with smugglers and other figures of the netherworld, and with other members of Parliament to plot strategy. This was the norm for many members of Parliament, to have a refuge from public dignity. His faction in the Commons was ultra-conservative; he was its “whip.” He was Whiggish when it was expedient, Toryish when it suited his purpose, even though the defining line between the two parties was growing more blurred as parliamentary Whiggism absorbed tradition-bound Toryism.

  Baron Garnet Kenrick and his wife had been reluctant to accept Lady Chloe’s invitation; she bored them, and her husband was a coarse, indelicate, and rude man. And they had wanted to rest a full day before beginning the arduous journey back to Danvers. But the Earl wished to cement a subtle if unacknowledged political alliance between his Tory colleagues in Lords and their counterparts in the Commons. “There are moves in the lower House to raise the land tax and lower the gin excise,” he explained to his brother. “There are bills being talked about that would also lower the customs on Irish lace, Dutch tile, and Spanish oranges. Sir Henoch’s party can defeat them, or at least see that the sting is taken out of them. We must show our good faith to him. All of us, even Hugh. He is a caitiff and a rake, but in his plebeian realm he wields an effective mitre.”

  And so the Kenricks, dressed in their best finery, early that evening trooped next door to Bucklad House to join a throng of other guests, few of whom attended because they relished the program of music or pitied waifs.

  The group of musicians who comprised Lady Chloe’s little orchestra was as fine as could be hired and assembled. Besides a tenor and a soprano to sing the arias and duets, it even counted moonlighting members of the Royal Band, the king’s own orchestra. “His Majesty would not call them an orchestra,” whispered Lady Chloe to Effney Kenrick before the performance, “even though the Band features players of strings. I fear that the strings are not often called on to help serenade the royal ear at the Queen’s Palace.”

  Effney Kenrick nodded sagely, and stifled a yawn.

  The orchestra played little-heard compositions by Corelli, Torelli, selections from Gluck’s operas, and a single opus of Scarlatti’s. Sixty-two guests crowded into the new dining hall, which could also double as a ballroom. The chairs were comfortable, the servants attentive, and the room made warmer by the diverting French and Italian tapestries on the walls. The odors wafting from the buffet in an adjoining room were torturously enticing and were responsible for an impatient and unabated rustle in the audience.

  It was during the merciful “intermission” that Garnet Kenrick and Hugh chanced to join a circle of guests gathered around Sir Henoch in an anteroom. Sir Henoch, who had once lived an austere, almost monkish life, this evening sported a burgundy velvet suit, three diamond rings on his fingers, and, next to the medallion of his baronetcy on his frock coat, another scintillating ribbon and orb which looked like a royal decoration, but which was actually a gold De Charmes pocket watch set with diamonds in the face, one for each hour. His powdered wig, by the fashionable French wigmaker de Gonville, had cost seven guineas, his gold-edged tricorn fifteen. He was determined to make an impression.

  An exchange of remarks on Braddock’s defeat in Pennsylvania and the looming tasks of financing and planning the impending war with France led to other matters. “Marsden? It was a pitiful collection of superannuated huts, inhabited mostly by lazy cottars, when I was raised. But these have lately been converted into cloth factories, in which I have a not insignificant interest.” Sir Henoch smiled, then managed to swallow a burp. He had been drinking, and stood with a glass of claret in hand. “I am the first baronet of the place since Bowler Ricks, my most immediate predecessor, expired in the third year of Charles the Second’s reign,” he boasted without prompting.

  “Was he also a made baron, Sir Henoch?” asked the Marquis of Colewort with a muted but superior sneer.

  Sir Henoch appraised his frank guest before he answered. “Made? Yes, he was made. He did Charles a service or two before Charles ascended the throne. As did I, your lordship, for our own gracious and grateful sovereign.” After a short pause, he asked, “And you?”

  The circle of listeners stood wide-eyed at this reckless insinuation.

  The Marquis of Colewort, a tall, pale man with pretensions to French radical thought and an uncritical convert to Bolingbroke’s The Idea of a Patriot King, replied grandly, “My family claims its heritage to Edward the First, Sir Henoch.” He paused a measured beat, and added, “And you?”

  “Mine, your lordship? Woolgatherers. A long line of woolgatherers. And before the invention of that worthy occupation, scratchers of the soil for roots, bulbs, and grubs. You see, your lordship?” chuckled Sir Henoch. “We are both made. All the peerage is made.”

  The Marquis stiffened, and a hand moved to rest on the silver-inlaid pommel of his sword. “Civility, Sir Henoch, and the highest regard for your wife and her noble purpose, dictate that I do not pursue this intercourse. I take my leave.” The Marquis touched his hat, bowed to the women in the circle, turned, and left the room.

  “And thank you for the five guineas, your lordship,” said Sir Henoch to the retreating back.

  “You have invited reprisal, Sir Henoch,” remarked the Baron of Grenody, his occasional card game partner at Canovan.

  Sir Henoch shook his head. “Nonsense, sir! That one has no bottom. He is a mere fopdoodle, and, I hear on good authority that his ancient heritage is nigh to Queer Street. Besides, His Majesty favored me once with an audience—to hear first-hand my account of the noosing of the notorious Skelly—and at one point in it confided that he dislikes Colewort. Colewort, you see, pleaded on several occasions for Prince Frederick. He is persona non grata at the court.”

  Garnet Kenrick asked, “And what story did you tell His Majesty?”

  “About Skelly?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, no,” protested Sir Henoch. “I am tired of telling that story.”

  Other guests seconded the Baron’s request. Sir Henoch chuckled and adamantly shook his head.

  Garnet Kenrick said, “Perhaps, then, you would favor us with an account of what actually did happen, Sir Henoch?”

  Again the circle of listeners gaped discreetly into space. This was graver than an insinuation. The notes of a Gluck concerto grosso ticked away the long seconds.

  But before Sir Henoch could rally a response, Garnet Kenrick said, “I have myself exaggerated my own accomplishments while professing the wildest humility, Sir Henoch. Such is the ton of our age. And the public reports of the Marvel affair and the Falmouth trial were so diverse in their claims that one could not know what to believe.”

  Sir Henoch’s eyes narrowed in appreciation and relief for the Baron’s shrewdness. He smiled pleasantly at the Baron, and at his son, whose attentive green eyes also made him uncomfortable. Without knowing why, for drink had dulled some of his mind, he ran a finger along the length of a scar on his cheek. “Well,” he said, “it was simply a matter of outfoxing the fellow, and trapping him in his lair, in those damned caves near Marvel. When I think of a hundred desperate men against our brave troops—well, I needn’t have worried. Our fellows made short work of ’em!”

  Lady Ornsby, Baroness of Tiverton, one of the circle, frowned. “I’d heard that there were hardly more than a dozen of them,” she remarked, moved by nothing more than a desire to reconcile contradictory but authoritative hearsay.

  Sir Henoch frowned, but dared not rebuke her, for she was a friend of his wife’s, and also of the Earl of Danvers. “Oh,” he replied, “so many of Skelly’s batmen deserted him when they saw the army arrayed before them, that the commanding officer was never quite certain, until it was over, what he was faced with.”

  “I’ve heard that you were familiar with Skelly and his lieutenant,” said the Baron. “What kind of men were they?”

  Sir Henoch shook his head. “Peculiar, eccentric, and quite foolish. I did not get to kno
w them so well, your lordship, other than to observe that about them.”

  “Skelly, I know, once owned an emporium here in London. Near your borough, I recall. I purchased a gewgaw there once, when I was my son’s age. And his lieutenant was a man of numerous accomplishments—poet, playwright, and author of that engaging novel, Hyperborea.”

  Sir Henoch raised his brow in astonishment. “Engaging, your lordship? I would not say so. It was found by finer minds than my own to be seditious claptrap. So it was stigmatized and burned right under the author’s nose, before he danced for Jack Ketch. And did you know this? That a copy of it—the second volume, I believe—was found on Skelly’s person at Marvel. It had stopped a bullet, but saved him for the rope. Had the same in his pocket when he died. One of the sheriff’s men filched it, I believe.” Then Sir Henoch’s brow knitted in distaste and he shook his head. “No, your lordship. Do not waste any sympathy on those men. They were smugglers, your lordship—and murderers.”