The Maze

by A. J. B. Johnston

  “Ainsi soit-il,” Thomas mutters.

  Hélène turns quickly away. Thomas can see her gently shaking her head.

  “And this,” Hogarth goes on, raising his voice to get his should-be listeners’ attention back, “here more or less begins the Spittle Fields. Some spell it S-P-I-T-A-L fields these days. Comes from an old hospital that once stood somewhere up here.”

  Thomas and Hélène stare at Hogarth.

  “Spitalfields,” repeats Hogarth more slowly. “Huguenots and silk.”

  Thomas and Hélène each shrug. Hogarth purses his lips.

  “Where your friend John Gallatin lives? On a Church Street among the Huguenots?”

  Thomas puts his hand to his forehead. “Oui, of course.”

  “Well,” Hogarth points out the window at an extremely tall and slender spire. “That is the new Christ Church. And beside it, if I’m not mistaken, is the street you seek.”

  Thomas’s eyes jump wide. “Excusez-moi.” He leans out the open window of the coach as far as he can.

  He can taste the grit in the smoky air, even more than when he was inside the coach. Nonetheless, he stays where he is. He studies each group and each individual as the hell-cart bounces by.

  There’s a herd of boys at the entrance to an alley. Thomas surmises they are bent over doing something they should not. He hears their snickers and guffaws. It brings to him a smile. Though his youth was in France, he supposes it was similar to theirs. He notes that an aged mother and what looks to be her daughter, both in middling finery, have to step around the scruffy boys to get by. They move out into the street and nearly pay the price. A man with a patch on one eye comes barrelling at them with a barrow filled with bricks and sand.

  Farther along, in the centre of the street, Thomas sees the porters of a sedan chair huffing and puffing along. Their footfalls fairly pound the cobbles. Their wide-eyed expressions say, “Look out, we’re not yielding to anyone.”

  On the right, two carpenters atop scaffolding are speaking what to Thomas’s ears is an unknown tongue. It has a lovely, lilting cadence. He wonders if that’s what Irish sounds like.

  “If you look out the window,” Thomas hears Hogarth say to Hélène, “way up to the top of the houses, do you see the large panes of glass?”

  Thomas listens in. He does as Hogarth suggests, only on his side of the coach. He looks up to the tops of the buildings as the hell-cart bounces by.

  “I do. Big windows,” says Hélène.

  “All that glazing,” Hogarth goes on, “is to bring in light. That’s where the Huguenots put the looms, up in the attic space. They sell the finished silk products in shops at ground level. Living quarters are in between. Clever and efficient, is it not?”

  Thomas does not catch Hélène’s reply, but he agrees it is clever.

  Back to scanning the ground level, Thomas focuses on a tall, thin man with a long-out-of-date wig. He’s bouncing along faster than anyone should ever walk. He passes an apothecary’s shop then an upholsterer’s before he ducks into a lane and out of sight. The fleeting sight of him makes Thomas laugh.

  Way up ahead on the right, just passing beneath the wooden sign showing riding boots, a solitary figure catches Thomas’s eye. A wigless man dressed in greys. He’s strolling in a familiar way and reading a folded-over newspaper as he goes along. His head inclines slightly from side to side as he walks and reads. Thomas expects the fellow to bump into the abandoned cart in his path, but at the last instant he looks up and carefully steps around, then goes right back to reading the paper in his hands.

  Now the man comes to a halt. He’s standing in front of a colonnaded portico of a church, looking around. The hell-cart is catching up.

  “And that,” Thomas hears Hogarth explain to Hélène, “is the new Christ Church. Nicolas Hawksmoor is the architect. Splendid, is it not? The street you seek is there, right beside the church.”

  The man in greys is staring at something Thomas cannot quite see. Something on the other side of the stone wall in front of the church.

  The cart rolls another few yards and Thomas sees what it is. Two men, one short and wide and the other tall and lean, are taking turns pushing each other in the chest. There’s anger on their faces and they’re only moments away from throwing fists. The hell-cart rolls past the scene.

  “Can we stop and regard some silk?” Hélène asks.

  And that’s when the man with the newspaper turns to look inquiringly at their hell-cart as it bounces by.

  “C’est lui!” Thomas shouts. “C’est lui.”

  He brings his upper body back into the coach and puts a hand on Hogarth’s knee. “Stop. Make stop. Gallatin. He is right here.” Thomas is pointing out the window opening of the coach.

  Hogarth thumps his fist on the underside of the coach’s roof. “Coachman. Coachman. We stop here.”

  —

  Hélène watches their embrace. Thomas is obviously relieved and pleased. The face of the oft-talked-about Jean Gallatin moves from being astonished to delighted to see his long lost friend. Their chests press together, the arms of the one enthusiastically hugging and slapping the other’s back.

  Standing apart, hands still clasping the other’s sleeves, for a moment neither has anything to say. Hélène is satisfied to be a bystander to the show. By the tiny grin she sees on Hogarth’s face, so is the English artist. It is Jean Gallatin who speaks first.

  “Whatever are you doing here, Thomas? How good it is.”

  Hélène is not surprised that Gallatin makes his greeting in English, but it looks to her as though Thomas is. He’s blinking at his old friend. He’s lost for words.

  Jean Gallatin shuffles his feet at Thomas’s silence. He pulls back, letting go of Thomas’s sleeves. He bows ever so slightly to Hélène and Hogarth. “Master Hogarth. Greetings to you. Is it you who found this fellow and brought him here? Well done.”

  The painter seems much amused but says not a thing. He merely makes a fraction of a bow and a courtly gesture with one arm.

  “You sound like a true Englishman,” Thomas says. “Accent and the rest. Five years, I guess.”

  Hélène makes her own appraisal. She has not laid eyes on this bookseller before, and she often wondered if he could live up to what Thomas has said: sharp of mind, opinionated, strong-willed and earnest to a fault. Well, she sees none of that. The man has kind eyes and a slender form. He’s a little taller than Thomas, and handsome in his own lean way. She likes the way he is so fond of Thomas and not afraid to show it to anyone passing on the street. Hélène slowly unfolds the pale-blue fan she’s been holding in her hand. She lifts it to her chin, then higher still to cover her mouth.

  In the momentary lull, two beats of a human heart, Jean Gallatin bows toward Hélène a second time.

  “Madame,” he says.

  “Ah oui,” says Thomas, “je m’excuse.” He glances at Hogarth and switches to English. “Jean, I must introduce her. It is Hélène.”

  “Hélène?” Gallatin twists his head. “But— your wife is Marguerite?”

  Hélène turns to Thomas. She’s curious to hear how he will explain the situation to his friend, and in front of Hogarth. Will he stick to the story they agreed to only a couple of days ago?

  Thomas yields a nervous laugh. She can see that wheels are spinning in his head. Whatever he’s written to Gallatin over the span of five years, as far as Hélène knows he’s not written to him in the past few weeks.

  “Oui, Jean, yes. I understand the confusion of your face. My wife Marguerite, she had to die.”

  Gallatin’s face registers shock at the news. Hélène suspects that Thomas’s English wording was not the best, because Hogarth gasps.

  “Thomas, I am so sorry.” Gallatin clasps his friend with both hands. “I did not know. You should have written. I would have come to Paris to share your grief.”

/>   “Very kind, but it was sudden. It was that. Alors, ma cousine ... I introduce you to Madame Kharlamov. That is her widow’s name. Hélène is prénom. She demand I travel with her on this journey to London. Me voici. And so here we are.”

  Gallatin bows yet again at Hélène, only this time stiffly and with a grave expression. A moment of instant mourning has apparently descended.

  Hélène cannot entirely hold back a smile. She steps forward half a stride and curtseys to Gallatin, lower than she usually does. On the way up, to amuse Thomas’s friend, she whispers a little joke to Gallatin that occurs to her.

  The few words bring surprise to Gallatin’s face, then a laugh. Good, Hélène thinks. After all, with Marguerite still living, as far as anyone knows, mourning for her pretend passing should be short.

  —

  Thomas sees Hélène’s lips move as she puts on her show of courtly deference to his friend. He cannot hear what she says to Gallatin, but he sees Gallatin’s embarrassed look before he laughs. Thomas shakes his head. Hélène can be playful when she wants. He’ll ask later what she said.

  “Chère cousine.” Thomas reaches out to draw Hélène closer to his side. He wants her to understand that she has to be careful how she acts and what she says.

  The bell in the slender steeple of Christ Church, towering overhead, begins to chime.

  “So,” Hogarth shouts above the resonant gongs, “I don’t think they’ve asked you yet, Earnest John. They’re wondering if they can stay with you. You French may beat around the bush, but I do not. On their behalf of course.”

  “Mais oui.” Thomas puts a hand to his chin then to the tricorne atop his head. “C’est vrai. Ma cousine et moi, could we find a bed with you? Two beds, I mean. Under your roof?”

  The church bells stop, having rung five times. The vibration of the last ring is still in the air.

  “Bien sûr. Of course.” Gallatin’s smile stretches across his face. “I’m in an entire house and there’s only me. My housemate, Johnson, who rents it with me, is off to see Europe on his grand tour. He writes he’ll likely be another six months. I have a servant, Polly, who comes in during the day, but she keeps herself busy in the basement kitchen and on the ground floor doing a bit of sweep and clean. Doesn’t stay the night. So yes, by all means. Please, please come along. It’s not half a block from here. We’ll figure out the sleeping arrangements when we’re there. Hogarth, I assume the trunk on the wagon behind the hackney comes with these two, is that right?”

  “That it does. I’ll give you a hand before I head off. I have a wife and children chez moi.”

  “You are very kind,” Hélène says to the two men hoisting up the trunk. She hands the two satchels to Thomas.

  “What did you say back there to Gallatin?” Thomas whispers in French to Hélène.

  She smiles and shakes her head. She displays the barest hint of arched eyebrows. Thomas has to let it go.

  They enter Gallatin’s place and undertake a rapid tour of the first two floors. He explains that Polly has left for the day, but she has kept the house warm and reasonably clean. Everything smells of smoke and burning candle wax. Hogarth nods at what he sees in each and every room. Here and there he offers a compliment to Gallatin: the fragments of Roman sculptures and pediments on display in one room and the blue and white Delft tiles fronting a fireplace in another.

  After offering his kind words, Hogarth is quick to say his goodbyes. He speaks first to Hélène, who tells him that she is pleased to meet him and hopes their paths cross again. Then, after descending the stone steps on the front of the house, standing on the cobbles of Church Street, Hogarth says to Gallatin, “John, you’re part of a group of writers and booksellers that meets once a week, is that not so?”

  “I am. Wednesday nights. Would you like to come along?”

  “I think I would. I’d like to hear what’s being said. Keep in the know.”

  “We’d love to have you, William. We meet at the Friend at Hand. It’s in a close off Threadneedle Street, near the Royal Exchange. Sign on the wall indicates the way. A painter such as yourself would be most welcome. Raise the tone.” Gallatin winks at Hogarth.

  “I doubt that, but who knows. And you,” says Hogarth turning to Thomas, “I expect our paths will cross again. London’s too small for anything else. Perhaps at the Friend at Hand with John and his friends. Unless of course you scamper back to that other land across the way. Au revoir, Tyrell.” Hogarth extends a hand to Thomas. The two men shake like tradesmen parting company after completing a job.

  “Tyrell?” queries Gallatin after Hogarth has headed off up the street into the fading light of day. “Thomas, you’ve given yourself a new name?”

  Thomas makes a face, eyebrows arching up. Instead of speaking of this out in the street, he puts an arm around Gallatin as they mount the steps and go into the house.

  “Lost your tongue? What was the name? Was it not Tyrell?”

  Thomas glances into the parlour to the right. “Une belle salle, Jean.”

  “I see. Another of your little secrets?” Gallatin halts their progress down the hall. He offers a disapproving face. “You’ve not changed. Secrets to you are like bread to the rest of us.”

  Thomas laughs. “La maison est très agréable.”

  “Merci, mon ami. Johnson and I are both bachelors yet, but we like it here. Let’s go upstairs and see if your cousin needs help settling in.”

  Thomas reaches out to stay Gallatin’s climb up the stairs. “You insist on speaking English. Tiens, so will I. The name Tyrell is just a little insurance. Not other than that. A disguise while out of France.”

  “A nom de plume?”

  “Only without the book. I reason if ever France, after my return, asks where I was for this time of my life, I will say I was a commis with the French army in the Pays Bas et les états allemands.”

  “You already have a story?”

  Thomas shrugs. “There will be no record of Thomas Pichon. Not in England. Only Thomas Tyrell.”

  Jean Gallatin looks at Thomas long and hard. Then he shakes his head. “Such camouflage is foreign to my nature, my friend. For better or worse, I feel obliged to give my true thoughts on anything and everything. Even if I wanted to hold back, I doubt I could.”

  “Who is to say which is the better path through life? We are each who we are.”

  “So it seems,” says Gallatin with a sigh. He begins again to climb the stairs. “Look, I’m sorry to put you in the attic, Thomas, but I think I must. I’ll give your cousin the better room on the first floor, as long as Johnson’s on his grand tour.”

  “Of course. That is right.”

  “All right then. I have a couple bottles of wine in the cellar. From Italy. Maybe over a glass or two you’ll tell me about what has been going on in your life. At least the quarter or half you think I can be trusted with.” Gallatin halts at the top of the stairs and pokes Thomas in the ribs.

  “For you, vieux ami, I risk telling the complete half.”

  Gallatin laughs. “Perhaps the virgin widow will have a glass with us?”

  Thomas tilts his head. “Virgin widow? Veuve vierge?”

  “Her term, not mine.”

  “I do not—”

  “Your cousin, Madame Kharlamov.”

  “Is that what she said in your ear?”

  “It is. It took me by surprise.”

  Thomas draws a deep breath. “Hélène is not like any woman I’ve ever known, Jean. A maker of mischief, she is.”

  “I believe it.”

  Thomas glances at his friend. Can he really see his lover’s mischievous side as quickly as that? No matter. Thomas must quickly decide just how much of his story he will share with Jean Gallatin. Should he confess that Marguerite is not really dead? No, maybe not. Because that will raise the question as to why Thomas fled Paris and the life he
had there, choosing instead uncertainty in England. Gallatin will not believe it was just to come see him. Sooner or later, any explanation Thomas comes up with will have to include Hélène, because here they are, arriving together at Gallatin’s house. The one thing Thomas knows is that it is always better to say less than more.

  Besides, keeping the truth from Gallatin is probably not such a bad thing. It’ll only be for a few weeks. At most, a few months. However long it takes for him and Hélène to get on their feet in their new lives. Once they have come to know London, and have positions suitable to their talents, they’ll move into their own place. Then Thomas will tell Gallatin the truth – well, more of it, in any case – and tell him of his real relationship with Hélène.

  VIII

  Seasoning

  London

  Spring 1732

  She removes the layers one by one, never taking her eyes off Thomas. He is sitting on the straight-backed wooden chair ten feet across the room. He is at the table where he has had to put down his quill. It goes into the waiting slot of the blue and white faience inkwell. Thomas is wearing only his chemise. He has pushed aside the manuscript he was working on, its ink now dry, the latest page atop the thin stack of others. He wants no distractions as he watches her unfasten and peel off her clothes.

  The attic room is tight and airless. The solitary candle on the table is the only light there is. It flickers and gives off a wisp of smoke.

  As she unlaces and undoes her strings and ties, the garments come slowly off. The entire procedure is going to take a while, but that is precisely the point. We are not animals compelled by nature’s shift of seasons to quickly rut. No, this is pleasure as pleasure should be.

  It comes at last down to only her chemise and the little cloth cap. The usually hidden contours of her curving body are visible beneath the linen. In the candlelight the linen seems to glow golden as Thomas looks on from his chair.

  For the final touch she pivots, turning to highlight her back. Slowly, as slowly as she can, she slides her bare feet backward across the chill wooden floor. Coming to him where he waits. As she advances backward she raises the chemise inch by inch, higher and higher still – slender calves, then the backs of her knees. The thighs rise to her rounded bottom. Honestly, Thomas thinks, is there anything on earth more appealing than a woman’s bum? The two crescent outside curves, the crack and best of all the hint of the flat area which underneath in shadow waits. Thomas smiles.