The Skull and the Nightingale

by Michael Irwin

  Within three days of my arrival my godfather again hosted a dinner. To my surprise the guests were as before, save only that Thorpe was absent. Although bored by the prospect of the evening ahead, I was on balance not displeased: if I came to be seen by Mr. Gilbert’s neighbors as a familiar member of the household, he could not easily cast me aside.

  I had hoped to play the courteous listener, but found myself more than once thrust into prominence. Mr. Hurlock, as witlessly noisy as before, assailed me with his raillery. He questioned me about the pleasures of London life, brushing aside my demurrals.

  “Don’t believe the boy!” he cried out. “I say don’t believe him! Does he look like a monk? He does not! There he sits, a handsome enough piece of young flesh. Never tell me there haven’t been women in the case. The town teems with ’em. Covent Garden, Drury Lane: there the ladies gather, and there the young men swarm about ’em like lice in a wig. Don’t tell us you haven’t been there, young man!”

  My godfather made an ill-judged attempt to turn the current of the rant:

  “I believe you may have visited such places yourself, in your time.”

  Spluttering wine, Hurlock exploded into a laugh.

  “You may believe it, Mr. Gilbert. You may well believe it, sir! I’ve gone belly to belly in many a London garret.”

  By now the embarrassment around the table, particularly in the countenance of his wife, was such as to be perceived even by Hurlock. He extricated himself as best he could:

  “That was in my plundering days, before I was married. Long before I was married!”

  He let out his bark of laughter, but laughed alone. My godfather changed the topic.

  “Mr. Quentin, I hear that you may be contemplating a visit to London?”

  There was a silence, and I saw that Mrs. Quentin, who was sitting opposite me, had flushed. With an effort, her husband spoke out:

  “I have been obliged to plan such a visit. It is not what I want or can afford, but it must be undertaken. My wife requires the services of a skillful dentist, such as cannot be found in these parts. We must seek help in London.”

  There were murmurs of sympathy, but I could see that the unfortunate Mrs.Quentin was on the verge of tears, whether at the prospect of the dental ordeal or from the mortification of hearing her plight publicly discussed. To ease the situation I launched into a lively monologue about recent advances in dental knowledge and new devices that had become available. I spoke with knowledge, because the previous month Latimer’s uncle had had the last of his teeth extracted and a set of false ones installed. I did not, of course, allude to the discomfort he had suffered, nor to the resulting unnaturalness of his facial expression. Mr. Quentin seemed interested in what I had said, asking a number of questions, and his wife recovered her composure.

  As the talk became general I hoped to subside into the background, but was again thwarted. Mr. Gilbert asked me to repeat, for Mr. Yardley’s benefit, my account of the London frog swallower. I obliged the company as best I could. The ladies grimaced but Yardley nodded and clicked his tongue. He gave it as his opinion that a bellyful of water would be no very forbidding environment for a frog, save only in respect of its warmth, uncomfortable for a cold-blooded reptile.

  Toward the end of the meal my godfather engaged with Mrs. Hurlock on the subject of music, reminding her that in years gone by he had sometimes heard her sing. To my surprise the buxom lady became positively animated on this theme, recalling the names of several of her favorite pieces. When, in a polite show of interest, I seconded her admiration for Handel’s “Say Not to Me I Am Unkind,” Mr. Gilbert promptly proposed that she and I should sing it together. Having no desire to perform in this company, and little confidence in the abilities of Mrs. Hurlock, I would gladly have refused, but she responded eagerly, and the Quentins politely supported the proposal. It would have seemed churlish in me not to oblige. I was influenced also by the reaction of Mr. Hurlock, whose overfed face expressed blank disgust. It would be a pleasure to irritate him further.

  To my surprise our impromptu duet proved creditable. Mrs. Hurlock’s voice, although not strong, was sweet and true, and I was able to adapt my own performance to it. We were warmly applauded, particularly by my godfather. Mrs. Hurlock, redeemed from anonymity, quite blushed with pleasure, in what must once have been her girlish manner. Her husband was the one person present who listened with hostility and clapped perfunctorily. Plainly he would have been happier at a cockfight. When the ladies had left us, he emptied two large bumpers in brisk succession and lapsed into a doze. Quentin remained subdued, but Yardley, prompted by my godfather, talked about the ingenious construction of birds’ nests, claiming that certain instinctive animal capacities might amount to something akin to human thought. He was interrupted by Hurlock, who woke from his sleep crying out at random: “Say nothing of Spain! The only enemy we need fear is the pope of Rome!”

  When our party dispersed my godfather and I went out upon the terrace to bid farewell to the guests. Mrs. Quentin shyly thanked me for providing her a little reassurance concerning her forthcoming trials. Mrs. Hurlock expressed the hope that we might sing together once more on some future occasion. Her husband, half asleep, was muttering and stumbling. A bright moon turned the lawns to silver and gleamed on the roofs of the carriages as they rattled away along the drive. Mr. Gilbert and I watched them till they were out of sight and we were alone together on the silent terrace.

  “The night is mild,” said he. “And the time has come for us to talk. I think we might sit out here for a while. Would you be so good as to fetch the port.”

  I did so without a word, my heart beating faster. Mr. Gilbert and I sat on either side of a small table. He took a sip of port and stared out across the moonlit garden. When he spoke it was with the air of a man embarking on a difficult topic.

  “I should have said either less or more in my letter. I am now resolved to say more.”

  I drank a little port myself, to give him space.

  He continued, with his eyes still looking into the distance:

  “You have known me only as the person I am at present. I have been several others. Some with a sturdier figure. They are now gone.”

  He turned to me, his voice suddenly sharp.

  “You have met my neighbors, and no doubt think them, as I do, a pitiful crew. Mrs. Quentin with her rotting teeth; the sottish Hurlock, who has all but lost the power of thought.”

  I halfheartedly made to demur, but he overrode me.

  “Yet such people were the local beauties, the local blades. Mrs. Hurlock in particular—Anna Halliday, as she was—attracted much admiration. She is greatly altered. You may not now believe that I admired her myself.” He smiled thinly. “Hurlock was in pursuit of her—Hurlock, the great buck of the county, but a fool. I might easily have won her—she preferred my company. What, you may ask, was the stumbling block?”

  I shook my head.

  “Let me tell you. I looked past what she was and saw what she would be—saw the matron in the maid. It was wisdom of a kind, but of the wrong kind—that of an older man. This was not the only such opportunity that I missed. I was confident that my time would come, but it never did. In terms of marriage, in terms of passion, it never did.”

  Unexpectedly Mr. Gilbert changed his tone, surprising me with a compliment:

  “You conducted yourself with credit this evening. I observed you closely. You were polite to Hurlock, attentive to Yardley, good-natured in your concern for Mrs. Quentin. You sang pleasingly. Yet you were detached. You were forming judgments. The young man I saw was the young man who writes me letters.”

  He turned to interrogate me.

  “How would you describe yourself ? I see that you are courteous, shrewd, amiable. What other qualities would you claim?”

  I knew that my answer should be no less forthright than the question.

  “Let
me set aside false modesty. I am physically vigorous. I cannot claim to be a scholar, but I am reflective and read quite widely. I can adapt myself to most kinds of company. I am sensual, probably to a fault. By temperament I am cheerful and amiably disposed, but I can have darker moods—even fits of rage.”

  Mr. Gilbert nodded, as though I had said nothing to surprise him.

  “You are not afraid to take risks?”

  “No.”

  “You have a relish for unusual situations?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you be ruthless?”

  This question called for a little thought.

  “I believe I can.”

  I wondered at these questions. Was I to be asked to stage a robbery or an assassination? But Mr. Gilbert let the matter drop as suddenly as he had broached it, and poured more port. One of his great black dogs padded silently from the house and laid his head on my godfather’s knee. I felt at ease—even exhilarated. What a singular exchange this was, under the stars, our words punctuated by stirrings of twigs in the breeze or the occasional scuttling of a rabbit. Where would it take us next? In the moonlight my godfather, with his pale face and small wig, had a ghostly luminosity which seemed to render him more dominant. Fondling the dog’s ears, he spoke again, this time ruminatively:

  “I lost another neighbor, Squire Warhurst, last year. By all accounts he died a good death, praying to the last. He was confident of admission to heaven, and Parson Thorpe endorsed that expectation. His soul may be there as we speak. Yet the man was a bully, a glutton, and a hell-bent whoremonger till mending his ways at fifty, following a stroke. If Warhurst has been saved, I can feel guardedly optimistic as to my own prospects.”

  He broke off: “You suspect that I am facetious?”

  “To be candid, sir, I was not sure.”

  My godfather smiled faintly. “I am not sure myself. But seriously, or half seriously, I reflect that the years and capacities I have left are insufficient for me to emulate this man’s sinfulness, even if I wished to do so. May I not, then, indulge myself a little? A very little?”

  After a hesitation he continued, as though lost in soliloquy:

  “A man may avoid the sin he is too timid to commit. In such a case, surely, the professed belief is mere faintheartedness. Might not the Almighty deem that the fellow has been cowardly rather than virtuous? Might not the eternal reward be curtailed accordingly? If so, the poor devil would be twice deprived—in this life and again in the next.”

  I tried to meet the challenge: “Then you believe in an afterlife?”

  “Of course.” A pause. “From time to time.”

  Somewhat baffled by now, I tried to exert myself:

  “Sir, I am not sure where your remarks are tending.”

  “Then I must make myself clear.” My godfather drew a breath and spoke out with decision. “The case is this. I have preserved appearances for so long that none of my neighbors know—indeed, I scarcely know myself—what lies below the surface of my character. Caution and good fortune have protected me, but they have protected me too far—protected me from life itself. I have never married, never fathered a child, never broken a bone, or so much as seen a corpse, save on a gibbet. I live in a great house defended by servants and dogs. The price I pay for my safety is imprisonment of a kind. I need a window in this confinement, a window through which to see a wider life.”

  “Were you not saying as much to me on my last visit?”

  “I was, but I wish to go further. There lies the point—I wish to go further.”

  He took a full mouthful of port. By now he was agitated, his breathing quicker.

  “I invited you to describe the life of London. But as I read your letters I came to recognize that I seek something more particular—the recklessness of personal doings. Do you follow me?”

  “I think so, sir.”

  “I wonder if you do . . .” His tone changed. “Let me say that I like the sound of your friend Mr. Crocker. I have a taste for situations where normal conduct breaks down—where there is excess and abnormality. Perhaps you inferred as much.”

  “I did.”

  “Where Yardley is interested in plants and animals, my study is human conduct, the Passions: Vanity, Greed, Avarice, Rage, Lust . . .”

  Mr. Gilbert enumerated these qualities with emphasis, speaking so fervidly as seeming to reveal a passion of his own. He leaned toward me across the table.

  “I propose an experiment. Life has slipped past me half unnoticed. I am tormented by a restlessness that I cannot subdue. I would wish my final years to be more vivid, more diversified, more—pungent. In short”—he rapped the table—“my project is in some sense to live again. I would hope to live differently and dangerously—through you and through your exploits. I am not so old that reports of mischief and gallantry will fail to warm my blood.”

  He checked himself and resumed in more measured tones: “I may no longer be robust but I am far from frail. The connoisseur who cannot paint may yet enjoy a picture. I aspire to be a connoisseur of experience—but the experiences will be yours.”

  He sat back and looked at me. “I await your response.”

  “I must consider, sir.”

  I spoke mechanically, but was incapable of considering anything, being lost in the situation. The moon shone down on us still. There were servants asleep in the dark house, birds and animals at rest all around us in their lairs. And here in the sweet-scented night air we were meditating the most eccentric of transactions. Was there, at that moment, any man in England engaged in a stranger conversation?

  “Why do you smile?” asked Mr. Gilbert.

  I found myself laughing aloud with real gaiety, as I might have laughed with Matt Cullen—something I had never previously done in the presence of my godfather.

  “I beg your pardon, sir: I was not aware that I was smiling. The reaction was involuntary. It means that I welcome your proposition.”

  “I am glad to hear it. But you will no doubt wish to ask me questions.”

  Indeed I did; but the most obvious inquiry—“How am I to be rewarded?”—seemed below the dignity of these intimate exchanges. I tried to think.

  “How far will I be expected to go?”

  “As far as you see fit.”

  “Then I may, for example, go further in my pursuit of Miss Brindley?”

  “Much further.” Mr. Gilbert leaned forward again. “Your first account of this lady, in her pastoral guise, spoke directly to me. As a young man I found myself plagued—the word is not too strong—by the pastoral. Art, poetry, drama insisted that love should be idyllic, Arcadian. The reality fell far short. The physical encounter could not match the rhetoric.”

  He glanced at me wryly: “If you ever feel such qualms, I fancy that your physical appetites can usually override them.”

  “I have found that to be the case.”

  The port had had its effect. We were smiling now, positively conspiratorial.

  “At the other extreme from pastoral fancy,” said my godfather, “it seemed to me that after your duet Mrs. Hurlock was looking at you with a kindly eye.”

  “I had a fleeting impression to that effect myself.”

  “Tell me, as a matter of hypothesis only: would your animal spirits render you capable of congress with that faded beauty?”

  I realized, with astonishment, that his question was seriously meant. I sought for an answer that would gratify him.

  “I am sure they would—given darkness and wine.” The port prompted a blunter phrase. “I fancy I could make her squeal.”

  I feared I had gone too far, but the words elicited an unexpected grin of appreciation. Here was a new frankness: the boundaries of our relationship had been widened by a chance phrase.

  “I am impressed to hear it. Perhaps such an opportunity may one day arise.”

 
I laughed with him, but was disconcerted. For years Mr. Gilbert had comported himself with authority and even severity; yet he must all the while have carried these secret appetites in his mind, like maggots within an apple. I began to wonder whether he might be a rather wicked old man.

  Moonlight and port stirred me to further recklessness: “Then if I set about seducing a married woman?”

  “I would hope to receive a full account of the campaign—and the conquest.”

  We sat silent for a moment. The big dog shook himself and walked away into the shadows. After he had vanished Mr. Gilbert resumed in an altered voice:

  “I have spoken frivolously. I must not allow myself to be misunderstood. Yes, I would be intrigued to enter a bedroom with you; but I do not look merely for carnal details. Your scruples and disappointments would be of equal moment to me.”

  He was very serious now. “I cannot easily explain myself. All my life I have mused on such matters, have debated them in my mind. But the debate was false, because one-sided. I could marshal the arguments from reason and morality: these were available in books. But the arguments from the other side, the arguments from passion, went unheard, because I never indulged my passions, never took moral risks. I was like a man who denounces wine having never tasted it. I look for a fairer disputation between passion and conscience, and I look to you to provide me the evidence I failed to gather for myself.”

  And again he asked: “Do you follow me?”

  “I do,” I replied, and meant what I said.

  Mr. Gilbert emptied his glass.

  “This is likely to prove a strange adventure for us—perhaps as much so as a voyage to the Indies.”

  “Where will our project end, sir?”

  “I cannot say. That uncertainty is part of the experiment.”

  He stood up, holding the table a moment to steady himself. I rose with him.

  “We have had an intriguing conversation. But it is late, and I must go to my bed. I think we now understand one another better. Give me your hand, Richard.”