The Skull and the Nightingale

by Michael Irwin

  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

  Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

  I admit, my dear godfather, that I myself am capable of perceptions of either kind. I make this confession the more readily in that antithetical reactions, if of a different order, are vividly in play in my pursuit of Sarah Ogden. I am so drawn to that lady as to be ready to eulogize her in the most rarefied terms, spiritual or pastoral; for her husband, however, I have conceived an animal antipathy so strong as scarcely to be rational. I am dismayed by the strength of my hostility.

  I find him physically offensive. He is sluggish and impenetrable, without a spark of wit. So far from contributing to conversation, he seems to suck all energy from it. He is heavy and pasty-faced, with a waist as wide as his hips. Several inches shorter than myself, he would surely outweigh me. It would be a keen pleasure to make this weighty gentleman cut a caper with a touch of a rapier to his rump.

  Yet the graceless clod nightly shares the bed of my Sarah. How can she endure it? How can she bear the thought of his seed inside herself? Or does he sheathe his unsavory member in pig’s gut to postpone conception?

  I must cure her of him. I must exorcise him. I can introduce her to sensations she has never known in the fat arms of her husband. For all these reasons my desire for her has a double edge: as I pleasure the graceful Sarah I shall be treading this lumpish creature under foot. Having written these gross words, I know that I should apologize for them and mock their absurdity. Nevertheless I cannot but feel—and I suspect that you may agree—that at one time or another any man’s amorous desires may be drawn toward feelings as ugly and foolish as these.

  I am encouraged by my belief that Sarah is disposed to physical pleasure. On one occasion before I left for France, there was a moment of intimacy, created and then cut short largely by chance, which seemed to imply a warm temperament. The challenge to me is not to start a fire but to fan an existing flame.

  This letter may be too coarse in its candor. Your own directness has encouraged me to emulation. I have been lured further into the open by the news that Ogden is indeed to visit Newbridge and that he is assisting Crocker in designing his masquerade. Mrs. Ogden will surely be present at what promises to be an intriguing entertainment.

  I remain, &c.

  Chapter 18

  Since the expedition to Richmond, I had seen Kitty but once, and that briefly. Although we conversed warmly enough, I detected some hint of reproach at what she must rightly have seen as a retreat on my side. She had heard, as had I, that our intrigue was now a subject for gossip. I could have declared myself as her protector, but had not done so. Neither had I suggested that our dalliance should come to an end. She was in a false position, and would have been entitled to complain outright. In the few months that I had known her, she had shown herself loyal and sweet-natured, even while making remarkable progress as a performer. If I had been an independent young gentleman, I would have been preening myself on this association with an actress so celebrated.

  However, I was far from independent. Self-interest compelled me to concentrate my attention on Sarah, and certain predispositions and vanities confirmed me in that course. The transition was eased by my habit of forgetting those not of immediate concern to me: Sarah alone had survived this propensity. Fond of Kitty as I still was, I sensed her dwindling in my mind like a person waving good-bye from the harbor as your ship heads out to sea.

  But it was awkwardly the case that Kitty was an intimate of Jane Page, now so close to Crocker. If I seemed to behave badly toward her I would surely lose a valued friend. A particular problem would be posed by the coming masquerade. She would naturally expect me to seek her out, yet my overriding concern at that entertainment would be to advance my cause with Sarah. It promised to be a difficult evening.

  A visit from Nick Horn chanced to touch on the matter. He urged me to join him that night at the theater, to see Love at a Distance. When I told him that I had attended it already, he brushed my words aside.

  “What is that to the purpose?” he cried. “I have seen it myself. You are damned ungallant, for of course we go for the sake of the divine Miss Brindley, with whom your name, at the very least, has been linked. I look for an introduction.”

  About to renew my excuses, I suddenly saw how to turn the situation to account, and allowed myself to be persuaded. Horn and I would meet at the theater half an hour before the performance. In the intervening time I visited a jeweler in Holborn and purchased a silver bangle of distinctive design. I packaged it in a small leather purse, enclosing a note which read: R.F. hopes his country lass will wear this at the masquerade.

  Kitty performed charmingly and to great applause, but given my new preoccupations I found that I could watch her with something close to detachment. Afterward I made shift to speak to her and to introduce Nick as a devoted admirer. As I had anticipated, our conversation was but brief, since many were vying for her attention. I had time, nonetheless, to slip my gift into her hand and to murmur, with what I hoped would pass for suppressed ardor, that I would be looking for her at Mr. Crocker’s masquerade. She seemed pleased.

  Later, over wine, Nick declared himself ravished by this encounter, and bitterly envious of a conquest which he claimed to find inexplicable. I could smile at his gibes, since I was pleased by what had passed. My short conversation with Kitty seemed to have restored my credit with her. If she wore the bangle at the masquerade I could hope to identify her the more speedily, with a view to staying well away from her when making my approach to Sarah. I allowed myself the afterthought that I might return to the wearer of the bangle toward the end of the entertainment if so prompted by physical need.

  Given my diverse aims, I found it hard to choose a costume for the masquerade. I wanted to pass unrecognized, but hoped my person would be seen to good advantage. Much would depend on the character of the occasion: an indoor masquerade would surely differ markedly from Vauxhall al fresco. To learn more I paid a visit to Wyvern Street.

  Crocker proved ready not merely to talk about his entertainment but to hold forth.

  “My friend,” he cried, “it is to signal a great change. I like to overhaul my life from time to time. I came to London to indulge in a little city swaggering, but I have had enough of it. This house will enable me to preside. I look to become a notable London host.”

  “Then are your tavern days at an end?” I asked, somewhat shocked.

  “I plan to make but one further appearance on that stage, by way of farewell. You must be there to sing with me.”

  “Will your comrades from the Seven Stars be attending the masquerade?”

  “Some of them. But they will be intermingling with upright older citizens.”

  “This all sounds strangely respectable, Mr. Crocker.”

  “Fear not. The unfathomable Mr. Ogden has undertaken to create new worlds for my guests to inhabit. Formal invitations will be dispatched tomorrow and will declare a theme—Flesh and Spirit. I flatter myself that I am well provided in both categories.”

  “But will not all the ladies appear as angels and the gentlemen as satyrs?”

  “The invitation will be so phrased as to discourage such simplicities. And who knows: in Ogden’s strange domain a satyr may be sanctified or an angel debauched.”

  “You have great faith in that gentleman’s powers.”

  “I have come to think him a remarkable fellow. You would have seen him working here now but for an unexpected professional engagement. He’s as dull a man as you could meet, but he has strange pictures in his head. There could be alchemy at work.”

  That evening I pored over the masquerade catalogs again, in doubt whether to aspire to the spiritual or to champion the flesh. At length I decided to become Hermes, the emissary of the gods, a licensed traveler between the upper and the nether worlds. The costume as illustrated seemed to promise both anonymity and freedom.
Apart from winged sandals and winged hat, my sole visible garment would be a loose white tunic. To confirm my identity it seemed that I would have to carry the Mercurial caduceus or wand, no doubt a tiresome accoutrement, but I was conveniently required to wear a short but dense black beard. Between that and my broad-brimmed hat, little of my face would be available to the eye.

  Ogden’s absence in Worcestershire allowed me less than a week in which to contrive another meeting with Sarah. Having no plausible excuse for visiting her house, I was once more reduced to haunting St. James’s Park. The weather was unpropitious—cool and intermittently wet. I visited the park on successive days, to find it all but deserted. On the third morning, coming away despondent, I wandered toward Margaret Street with no clear plan in mind. As I neared Mrs. Kinsey’s house I glanced up to see Sarah approaching.

  I had four or five seconds to devise a sufficiently innocuous greeting.

  “A welcome encounter, Mrs. Ogden. I come from the park, where I was recollecting our last conversation there.”

  “And that remembrance turned your feet in this direction?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “You might have seen me in the park with my aunt, but unfortunately she is indisposed. I come from her house and am on my way home.”

  “Then you have no particular engagement?”

  “No.”

  Her eye caught mine, and there was the slightest of pauses. I knew at once, and with a surge of hope, that we were united in wishing to prolong our conversation. But how to do so? Affecting easiness, I found my voice a little unsteady:

  “I would welcome an opportunity to talk with you . . .”

  “Here in the street?” (This with a slight smile.)

  “No.”

  “Then where?”

  I apprehended, of course, the unspoken words: The servants would talk if you came to the house again. But did not that shared understanding immediately define us as conspirators? I took a risk:

  “Having learned of your aunt’s indisposition, might I not call upon her this afternoon with some small gift?”

  Sarah considered the suggestion and inclined her head: “You might indeed—she was always fond of you. And might I not happen to be there and offer you tea?”

  In this way the matter was speedily resolved. I went on my way with a fast-beating heart, exhilarated by this ready collusion. Three hours later, having sent up some fruit and established that Mrs. Kinsey’s ailment was nothing worse than a chill, I was seated in her drawing room with Sarah.

  “We can resume our conversation,” she said. “Pray what do you wish to talk about?”

  Her mood had changed since the morning: she was quickened, keen-eyed, slightly flushed, as though ready for argument. I tried to sound easy and affable.

  “Anything at all. I want to learn about your doings. We have known one another extremely well, but lately there have been gaps in that knowledge.”

  “Indeed there have,” said Sarah, smiling but sharp. “The great gap opened after you left for France and ceased to answer my letters.”

  Here was direct engagement. I found it encouraging rather than otherwise.

  “I plead guilty to that charge. My only defense is a feeble one. I have an ingrained weakness that you may recall. It seems that, more than most people, I live in the moment, with only a diminished recollection of those not present to me.”

  “You are right—it is a pitiful defense. Absorbed in foreign pleasures, you forgot me.”

  “At least I am properly remorseful. And such meager pleasures as I enjoyed abroad are correspondingly forgotten now that I have returned.”

  “If they are forgotten you are in no position to claim that they were meager. Nothing you say can be trusted.”

  Sarah spoke teasingly but looked triumphant. Unsure of the balance between banter and reproach in her words, I tried to regain the initiative:

  “Meanwhile, however, you were marrying well.”

  “Marrying very well. In at least two respects.”

  “Money being one of them?”

  “Most certainly. I had never dreamed of such wealth. I was transformed: suddenly I could speak with authority. Do you not detect it? Are you not a little in awe of me?”

  “A little.”

  “You never were before. This is the effect of wealth. Formerly you had money and I had not. Now you fear I may hit you on the head with a bag of guineas.”

  “Surely you would do nothing so violent?”

  “Not if I am treated with proper respect.”

  The remark could have been a pleasantry or a warning, but was probably both. Although I smiled, my hopes were fading.

  “You spoke of two great gains from your marriage. What was the other?”

  “How can I express it? The experience of energy. Mr. Ogden is a man of great force. You have seen that he is careless of convention. He cannot pretend. What he does not find interesting he ignores. If he wants something, he will set out to get it.”

  “So you have told me before—instancing yourself as the thing wanted.”

  I tried to speak lightly but probably did not succeed. Sarah made no reply. At a loss, I sought for an observation neither jealous nor sneering:

  “Are you allowed to participate in these forceful pursuits?”

  “Almost never.”

  “How do you entertain yourself when Mr. Ogden is away? Do you pay calls?”

  “Very few.”

  “Is this not a somewhat—lonely life?”

  “It is the life I have chosen. What of your own life, Mr. Fenwick? Does it never grow wearisome to be a professional man of pleasure?”

  I smiled before I had thought of anything to smile about: my last remaining hope was that I might somehow spin us into a lighter mode of discourse.

  “You are hard on me, Sarah Ogden. Here we are, two old friends, all but quarreling. You have squeezed our conversation into a tight corset, but I will cut the strings. The truth is that we are similarly placed, you and I. If your husband is a man of force, so is my godfather. I pursue my life of pleasure at his command, so that it has become a duty. Let me tell you, it is no easy matter to enjoy oneself to order. I cannot write to him and say: ‘I have duly tasted this or that pleasure, but to no effect.’ He is paying me to communicate sensations.”

  Sarah was thawed sufficiently to be laughing at me in her old way.

  “Poor Master Richard, I quite thought you would have found such duties congenial. How grievously you must have suffered. Have your sensations been altogether numbed?”

  “I would not go quite so far.”

  “It is a relief to hear you say so. I have credited you with strong susceptibilities.”

  I maintained the light tone. “Strong, perhaps, but also refined. You surely perceived the refinement?”

  “I cannot recall doing so. But I accept your account of the matter. What I still do not understand is why your godfather should indulge you in this way.”

  “I myself hardly know. Perhaps in an attempt to make sense of the world. He wishes to be better informed about experiences that he has missed.”

  “Has he not left his inquiry rather late?”

  “I think he has.”

  She paused, and then struck out again:

  “Where will this experiment end? When he is satiated with your pleasures, what will happen? Will you be withdrawn to the country to take charge of his estate?”

  “I cannot say. I wish I could.”

  “Then you do not know what you will be doing five years from now?”

  “I do not know what I will be doing one year from now.”

  “Then perhaps your situation is as strange as my own.”

  She smiled, as though to herself, and the smile gave way to laughter. A little puzzled, I found myself laughing with her, if only from fell
ow feeling.

  “But how is your life strange?” I asked.

  “That is something I am not at liberty to tell you. But strange it is.”

  “You tantalize me.”

  “So be it. Will you be attending Mr. Crocker’s masquerade?”

  I welcomed the change of direction: “Certainly. I take it that you will be there?”

  “Oh, yes. This will be the first masquerade I have seen. I like the idea that for an evening people can cease to be their customary selves.”

  “I will be interested to see your unaccustomed self—if I can penetrate your disguise.”

  “I shall expect to see you, Mr. Fenwick, in the guise of a brigand or a pirate.”

  “That is cruelly said, Mrs. Ogden. I am a gentle spirit.”

  “You are no such thing, as I well know. My friend Miss Martin told me that when she was but fifteen you forced your kisses upon her.”

  “Can you believe me capable of such barbarism?”

  “Readily. You were always a lawless fellow—as Mr. Gilbert must have suspected.”

  We continued in this easy vein, and I returned home with soaring hopes. If Sarah left her husband’s side at the masquerade, I could surely venture an advance of some sort.

  But again I reminded myself that Kitty would also be present. Might it be that my two carefully separated narratives would close upon me like scissor blades? Surely not, if I could retain my grip on the handles.

  My dear Richard,

  You show a proper sympathy for Mrs. Quentin. I shall enable her to remain in her present residence if that is the course she prefers.

  Your own story quickens in ways agreeable to my curiosity. You are steering a course toward the heart of that complication in human affairs which most strongly engages my interest. The lady in the case is but lately married. You are drawn to her, it would appear, for several distinct reasons. It seems likely that her motives, also, must be mixed. Desire and Morality, Illusion and Passion are poised in a nice state of antagonism, and the outcome will not, as in a novel, be predetermined in favor of Virtue. It will be what it will.