The Skull and the Nightingale

by Michael Irwin

  “Yours must be a dangerous profession,” I suggested.

  “That may be so, sir. Fortunately I seem to feel pain less than most men. Perhaps I have grown accustomed to it. I have had bones broke, and shed blood.” He paused, before adding, with the faintest of smiles: “Above all, sir, not being a gentleman, I am considered to be outside the rules of honorable conduct, and therefore see no need to be bound by ’em.”

  I felt confident enough to inquire, with delicacy, whether he might not be regarded by some as a bully. He rejected the insinuation very calmly.

  “No, sir, because I never start a quarrel. Your practiced duelist who calls out a harmless fellow man for sport—he’s the bully.”

  “To talk to,” I said, “you seem a polite, composed sort of man.”

  “And so I hope I am, sir. But that is also my professional manner. I find it has a concentrating effect, like the barrel of a musket.”

  These exchanges were cut short when I was summoned to take a chair beside our host. To be seated by him was to be immediately reminded of his bulk. His thigh is double the thickness of my own. By contrast his face, well formed and bright-eyed, is no more than plump, but it perspired freely, causing him to dab at it with a handkerchief.

  “I am pleased to see you, Mr. Fenwick,” said he. “I hope you will sing with me again.”

  “With great pleasure.”

  “By the way, I am acquainted with Lord Vincent, whom I believe you know.”

  “Very slightly.”

  “I have been observing you. You yourself I see to be watchful, eager to take in everything about you.”

  “I hope I am,” said I, by now embarrassed.

  “You were deep in conversation with Mr. Pike, who is often taciturn.”

  “I found him most interesting.”

  “That shows judgment. He may be the most interesting man in the room.”

  He turned away and rapped for silence:

  “Gentlemen, if you will indulge me, I feel disposed to sing.”

  Amid applause he got himself to his feet. I could see that he was immersed in his performance, half jocose though it was. While he sang no one would have thought of his unwieldy body—he lived through his voice:

  “Come, friends, and bear me company:

  I dare not go to bed.

  I’ve drunk too little or drunk too much,

  And my heart is heavy as lead.

  Although this life is all too short

  The nights can last too long,

  So help me pass the lingering hours,

  And join me in a song.”

  The whole company did indeed join lustily in the chorus:

  “In an hour, in a week, in a month, in a year,

  Where shall we be? No man can say.

  If we drink, if we fight, if we whore while we’re here,

  Then sooner or later the devil’s to pay.

  So sing through the night,

  Sing while we may,

  Till a new dawn reminds us to live for the day.”

  Crocker lowered his great rump amid much cheering and stamping of feet. By now the room was very warm and we were all in a tipsy sweat. Invited by our host to perform, I offered “The Soaring Lark Salutes the Morn.” When I had concluded, Crocker and I were persuaded to sing an indecorous duet:

  “A tippler’s throat is a conduit pipe:

  Pour, landlord, pour.

  We drink to piss, and piss our drink, and drink to piss once more.

  A man don’t leak till a man has drunk,

  So let the liquor flow:

  We take it in and shake it down, and then we let it go.”

  The assembled tipplers sang with us till the windows shook and our ears rang.

  It seems to be the custom at these gatherings to drink and talk at large until Crocker takes the lead in some way. When the singing was done, the former general carousal was resumed. Voices rose and laughter rang out. Somewhat elevated myself, I noticed the prudent Latimer slip away. I was sitting with Horn, who was by now very loud, at one point laughing so hard that he fell to the floor.

  At length Crocker again forced himself upright.

  “Gentlemen!” he cried. “There is work to be done. Let us withdraw.”

  I confess that, owing to the influence of wine, my recollections of what followed are less than distinct. Crocker’s table was pulled aside, and he stalked ponderously from the room. The rest of us rose—with a crashing of chairs, bottles, and glasses—and followed him into the night air. Crocker ensconced himself in what was apparently his private chair, to be borne away by four men, with the company trooping at their heels. I wondered if we were to be plunged into some violence of the Mohock kind—though in truth I had never heard that Crocker was associated with such doings. We made a strange procession: an obese, chair-borne Achilles followed by a rabble of drunken Myrmidons. There was no show of provocation or aggression, although I fancy anyone standing in our way might have been thrown aside. Perhaps Crocker himself and Pike, who stayed close to his chair, were the only individuals among us still in a condition to think clearly. At some point we turned from the main thoroughfare and followed a link-boy through a maze of unlighted alleys.

  At length we were motioned to a halt. The moon, emerging from a cloud, showed us to be standing beside a long wall. It seemed an unpromising destination. I was aware of Crocker alighting from his chariot and, through the agency of Pike, getting us, his foot soldiers, positioned at short intervals along the wall. He himself took a central place. His stentorian command, ringing through the night air, enjoined us to set our shoulders to the brickwork and then push rhythmically against it in response to his further shouts, as though trying to budge a great wagon. All concerned fell uncomplainingly to this apparently futile task. We strained in unison, strained repeatedly—and strained to no effect. But after a number of such lunges there seemed, to my surprise, to be some slight sense of motion in the brickwork. We maintained our efforts till a distinct swaying ensued, and eventually, to the accompaniment of a ragged cheer, an indeterminate length of the wall gave way completely, collapsing inward with a rumbling crash.

  Like many others, I went down with the wall and had to stumble to my feet among broken bricks. There was a confusion of curses and a loud barking of dogs. The moon was now hidden by a cloud of dust. All present hastily dispersed as best they could, given the darkness, their drunken state, and the shock of the fall. I found my way to Cathcart Street I know not how, my clothes filthy, my wig full of dirt, and one stocking soaked with blood.

  Next morning I wondered at the course the evening had taken, and asked myself whose wall we had destroyed, and why. I also felt some astonishment that the wall had indeed collapsed. My uncertain conclusion was that the cause had to do with vibration, the faint movement communicated to the brickwork engendering a countermovement.

  Why Crocker should have organized this assault I cannot imagine. He appeared to be fairly sober throughout the evening, his freakish size perhaps rendering him resistant to the inebriating power of punch. Nor would I take him to be a belligerent man. I look forward to finding out more about him, and about the strange doings of the past night.

  Yours, &c.

  This escapade had left me rather the worse for wear. Not until the afternoon was I washed, dressed, and restored to rights. A feeble explanation to Mrs. Deacon concerning the state of my laundry—I had suffered an “unfortunate mishap”—was received civilly, but with the hint of amusement that it deserved. It would not do for me to appear ridiculous again. I wished my landlady to think me a spirited gentleman of fashion, not a lout.

  After taking a dish of tea, I felt a little better. It seemed to me that the doings of the previous night, discreetly edited, might entertain my godfather. Lacking the energy to go out of doors, I settled down to compose what eventually became the letter here tra
nscribed.

  While doing so I conceived the idea of keeping a record of my entire correspondence with Mr. Gilbert. My recollections being already somewhat misty, it seemed important that I should at least be clear as to what I had reported. I could not risk falling into self-contradiction. Fortunately I had preserved fragmentary drafts of my earlier epistles; now I pieced them together and rewrote them as fair copies. Henceforward I would keep this archive up-to-date, as constituting my official memory.

  Latimer and I had tacitly chosen to consider our pursuit of Kitty Brindley and Jane Page a joint enterprise. We returned to the theater to see again the interlude that had pleased us and afterward to dine once more with the principal performers. I enjoyed the little pastoral as much as before—in fact more, given my interest in the young shepherdess. There ensued, however, a distraction which I could not have foreseen.

  We stayed to see the comedy that followed the interlude. In the course of it I happened to look from our box above the stage toward the audience at large, and noticed, in the second row, Sarah Ogden, sitting beside a man I could only assume to be her husband. I leaned back, out of their line of vision, but could not resist further glances in their direction. The top quarter of Ogden—all that was visible—suggested a thickset, impassive man. Sarah was more responsive to the performance, but to me there seemed some constraint in her manner. I wondered if she had seen me and was discomfited by my proximity.

  Our engagement after the performance—at which, as it seemed to me, Kitty was once more encouraging and Jane Page once more elusive—pushed this episode to the back of my mind. The following morning, however, it returned with vexing vividness. I found myself recalling my warmest interlude with Sarah, nearly three years previously, when she had been visibly stirred, perhaps even drawn a few steps along the path toward capitulation. Could the dull Ogden elicit such responses? I resolved that at some future time I would indeed resume my pursuit of her. The affair with Kitty Brindley I was willing to expose to my godfather’s curiosity. Here was a second narrative, a private one, of which I would tell him nothing.

  My dear Godfather,

  I continue pertinacious in the pursuit of pleasure. This afternoon I took tea with Miss Brindley, tête-à-tête, at her lodgings in Rose Street.

  It seems to me that in the negotiation that ensued we were both to be commended for the art with which we translated into euphemism what we knew to be a business transaction. I represented myself as a young fellow still making my way in the world, well provided for but (alas!) in no position to commit myself to a settled way of life. Miss Kitty’s sketch of her past was the stuff of a country ballad. She had left her native village for love of a soldier who had promised marriage but then deserted her. It would have gone hard for her had she not fallen in with Jane Page, who had secured her some trifling employment in the theater. Since then she had advanced in her profession, and had hopes of rising further.

  You may wish to know something of her appearance. In person she inclines to be slightly plump, but in that pleasing way which seems to be the effect of youthfulness only. She has large blue eyes, a clear complexion, and a ready smile often followed, however, by a lowering of her eyes, as though she is in doubt that she may have been too forward. In manner she is open and candid, a quality in the fair sex that has always attracted me.

  When considering her career in London, she was thankful, she said, for her good fortune, because she could have fared far worse. On the other hand, she had broken all ties with her parents, her prospects in the theater were uncertain, and she could not but feel anxiety concerning her future. (When I referred, in studiously general terms, to the most notorious perils of her profession, she replied, “What would I know of those, sir?”)

  It was perhaps droll that we each affected simplicity while signaling to one another as directly as circling animals. Our attempted deceptions (and self-deceptions) were mutually apprehended and tolerated. The common ground to which we tiptoed our way was the fiction that we were like-minded innocents from the country, ill at ease in this unfeeling town. What Miss Brindley wants, of course, though she cannot say as much, is a wealthy husband, or failing that, as will most probably be the eventual case, a sufficiently wealthy protector. There are members of her profession who have achieved as much. My hope, and in effect my offer, was that at this early point in her career I could offer her a companionable and moderately remunerative apprenticeship for the future to which she aspires.

  I have written more glibly than I feel, representing Miss Brindley, her charms, and little stratagems, as also my own pursuit of her, with irony and a hint of derision. However, I have another perception of a warmer and more generous kind. After all there is a natural charm and even innocence in her disposition. I am surely not the first man to have had a conversation of this kind with her but, equally surely, I am by no means the twenty-first.

  By the time we parted we had reached, as it seemed to me, an understanding as to the immediate future course of our relationship, and this with no hint of a leer, a smirk, or a double entendre. The young lady will surely have observed that I was powerfully aroused by her, yet on quitting her apartment I ventured only to kiss her small hand.

  When I come to do more you will hear further from

  Yours, &c.

  Mr. Gilbert’s reply must have been written very soon after he had received my letter:

  My dear Richard,

  It would appear that you have been living a full and varied life in London, very much along the lines I would have hoped.

  However, I now feel the need to discuss with you directly certain issues arising from our project. I would be obliged, therefore, if at your earliest convenience you could arrange to pass a few days here at Fork Hill.

  I remain, &c.

  I took the coach the following morning.

  Chapter 6

  So it was that I returned to Fork Hill House some six weeks after my previous visit. When I had shaken off the stupefaction of the journey, and washed the odors of it from my person, I felt flushed with vigor and ready to face any challenge that might lie in store. I was no mere supplicant, but a young man of some little consequence, Mr. Gilbert’s personal emissary from the capital. The bedroom I had occupied in March had been prepared exactly as before, as though it were now reserved for my exclusive use. The servants greeted me with smiles of recognition, pleased that I remembered their names. Even the great dogs licked my hand and wagged their tails in welcome. I was encouraged to have become, to this small extent, an accepted member of the household.

  Mr. Gilbert was, as ever, politely formal, but I sensed a suppressed excitement underlying the courtesies. His glance was more restless, his words came more quickly.

  “We must talk,” he said, “and at some little length—but not for a day or two.”

  The change I felt in myself was mirrored in my godfather’s estate. The garden in front of the house was a blaze of spring flowers, golden and red. At the rear the expanse of his land was no longer held at bay by a palisade of black branches but merged into a surrounding sea of green leaves. I wandered out, as before, toward those woods, exulting in the clean air and warm sunshine. In the fields there were scores of white lambs, cropping the grass alongside their dams. Here was a true pastoral scene, where my Kitty would have been at home as shepherdess. Birdsongs trilled around and above me, a sound I had scarcely heard in London, and I was inhaling the sweet scents of growth rather than the stench of refuse. If this was the healthy life, as I felt it to be, then surely London, with its din and stink, might threaten illness, mental if not physical. My mind seemed clearer here.

  Borrowing a horse from my godfather’s stable, I rode out to explore the surrounding countryside, something I had never attempted before. It was a fertile, secluded region, the nearest town being five miles away. To ride again was a release—how much more pleasing to be in partnership with a horse than to have it haul your carri
age like a slave.

  I was happy to amble at random, thinking about the days ahead. What conversational manner should I adopt when talking to my godfather? My former style—deference with an occasional glint of spirit—seemed inadequate to the changed situation. Too much in that vein and he might conclude that I lacked the mischief to be a bold participant in London life. Should I speak more freely, even suggestively? I would need to stay alert and be guided by Mr. Gilbert’s response.

  I rode through Fork Hill itself, a straggling hamlet a mile from my godfather’s house. Passing the churchyard, I heard my name called, and looked round to see Mr. Thorpe, the clergyman I had met on my previous visit. I dismounted to shake his hand, and we stood conversing in the shade of a huge oak tree, while my horse grazed the verge.

  In the open air, fresh from hauling a fallen gravestone upright—his task when he had seen me—he looked younger and more vigorous than I had previously taken him to be. And so I told him, emboldened by the fact that he seemed a friendly fellow, pleased to enjoy the distraction of a chat. When I asked him whether he did not find life in a secluded parsonage a little dull, he gave the question thought.

  “I would once have done so. At Oxford I was considered a lively spark. But since coming here, I have been at pains to accept my destined place.”

  I pursued the point, perhaps in tactless terms: “Is that not rather as though a butterfly should become a caterpillar?”

  Thorpe did not take offense: “Better a healthy caterpillar than a bedraggled butterfly. I hope to marry one day. My wife will be a parson’s wife, and my children will be a parson’s children. Then the transformation will be complete.”

  When he hinted a question concerning my own prospects, I said something to the effect that these were at the mercy of my godfather.

  Thorpe nodded. “I understand you. In these parts we are all beholden to Mr. Gilbert and must study to deserve his good opinion.”

  We smiled, in mutual understanding, and I parted from him cordially, pleased to have found a possible ally in this unknown territory.