The Skull and the Nightingale

by Michael Irwin

  The glimpses I recall become briefer. I was in Hell once more, where the dance around the flames had become more abandoned. Sarah was not among the revelers. Puck appeared from nowhere, saying: “Soon, Mr. Mercury.”

  “By the clock,” I cried. “I shall be there.”

  I was in one of the drawing rooms, where I saw Ben Jennings snoring in a chair, his wig askew, his Quaker hat on the floor.

  I was blundering up the stairs in pursuit of Diana, and caught up with her among the gauzes of Heaven.

  “Winged messenger, what do you want of me?”

  “I hardly dare to say.”

  “Can a god fear to say what he feels?”

  “Come with me.”

  I led her down into the darkened chamber. Most of the candles being by now burned out the darkness was intense, but in her white garb Sarah was faintly luminous.

  “What is this place? I cannot see.”

  “But are you not Queen of the Night?”

  There was a movement between us: she had drawn an arrow from her quiver and the point of it was at my breast. I heard a low laugh.

  “You are in mortal danger, sir.”

  “But I am a god.”

  I clutched at the arrow and it collapsed in my grasp, being no more than rolled paper. Throwing it aside, I pulled Sarah to me and kissed her mouth with a famished fury that she reciprocated.

  How long we clung together I do not know, but we broke apart when there were exclamations around us. Something was leaping and bounding and scuttling about the room. Those within, Sarah among them, ran to the doors as my brain sluggishly comprehended that the intruder must be Trinculo.

  When I had felt my own way out, I found that the panic had spread from room to room. The screaming subsided only when Francis Pike appeared with Trinculo in his grasp and carried him off toward his cage.

  The mood of the gathering had been changed by this alarm. A number of the guests took it as their cue to leave. Cursing the interruption, I went to find Sarah again, to renew our moment of intimacy. She would have returned to the dark room, surely, in the expectation that I, too, would return. And so I would.

  The steps had grown steeper. I took them one at a time, priding myself on my caution. Heaven, where the light appeared weaker than before, was occupied solely by a monk—who was Ogden. We did not look at each other as I went past.

  In the dark chamber I floundered my way through the black gauzes, calling out “Diana! Diana!” Reaching the blue room, I saw with joy that Sarah was standing at the far end of it, facing me. But she was in conversation with Medusa. She looked at me past the snaky locks of her companion but continued to talk to her as I stood and waited. At length she turned, and the two women left together. After a moment of blankness I set off after them, hobbling down the stairs.

  In the hallway Sarah was standing apart from the chattering groups. I approached her with relief, but she spoke before I could:

  “Mr. Fenwick, I have breathed some night air and am myself again. I am ashamed at what passed. It must never be repeated.”

  “Why not?” I asked doltishly, but she was already walking away.

  I stood on the spot, hardly able to take in what had happened, beyond a puzzled sense of having clambered to a summit only to slither straight down the other side.

  At this time, or perhaps later, I glanced at the clock and saw that midnight had long passed. I let out a cry which attracted some little attention. Was I to lose even my second prize? In a show of fatuous indignation I stood directly beneath the clock, and looked about as though Kitty might have been hidden in the vicinity.

  “Mr. Fenwick,” said a voice.

  It took me a moment to get my eyes and my mind into order.

  “Mr. Pike?”

  “Are you looking for Miss Brindley?”

  “I am. I am looking for her. Where is she? She should be here.”

  “She waited here for quite some little time, sir, and seemed to be expecting you to come. But at last she left with Mr. Horn.”

  “With Horn? With Nick Horn?”

  I lurched out of the front door among other guests who were leaving.

  “Nick Horn!” I shouted. “Nick Horn!”

  I was very angry and very bewildered. There was a bright moon in the sky. Of Kitty or Nick Horn there was no sign.

  How I made my way back to Cathcart Street I cannot remember. My next recollection is of standing in my parlor and contriving, after several attempts, to light a candle. Seeing a strange reflection in the mirror, I stripped off my helmet and black whiskers. I was in need of something. Tea—a dish of tea. I had to have a dish of tea.

  “Mrs. Deacon!” I called, then opened my door.

  “Mrs. Deacon!” I roared. “Mrs. Deacon!”

  There were sounds on the stairs and my landlady entered in her nightgown. I had never seen her in a nightgown before. Nor had I seen her angry before.

  “Mr. Fenwick, what is this uproar? You will waken the whole street!”

  I stared at her, struggling to make sense of the situation.

  “Mrs. Deacon,” I said at last, “take off your nightgown.”

  I took a step toward her.

  “You are drunk,” she said. “Go to bed.”

  Not to be deterred, I made to seize her in my arms, but she pushed me away.

  “You are repulsive,” she cried.

  As I reached for her again she snatched up my helmet and struck me a ringing blow on the head. I staggered back, half stunned.

  “Go to bed!” she cried again.

  “Mrs. Deacon,” I said, with a hopeless attempt at dignity, “there has been a misunderstanding.”

  She left the room without speaking again.

  After some moments I moved once more. Having blown out the candle at the third attempt, I fumbled my way up to bed and was pitched into instant oblivion.

  Chapter 20

  Half awake, I made to turn over, but found that I could not. My face was stuck fast to the pillow. In a panic I wrenched it free and sat up. I was giddy and had an aching head. It seemed that my cheek had been glued down by dried blood, and that my movements had set the wound trickling again. I pressed my sleeve to it. As the events of the preceding night came back to me, one mortifying recollection succeeding another, I closed my eyes and groaned aloud. This was the worst morning of my life: everything I had played for I had lost.

  When I forced myself to look about, I could judge from the light that the day was well advanced. I got uncertainly to my feet and stumbled to the mirror. One side of my face was scabbed black, with fresh blood oozing down; the other was pasty. My eyes were small and bleared. Moving a dry tongue, I became aware that my mouth was foul and that I was exceedingly thirsty.

  I lowered myself into a chair, and struggled to think. Somehow—yes—I had been rejected by three women in a single night. The worst of it—what was the worst of it? Yes—that I might be turned out of my lodgings and denounced for assault. I would have to make my peace with Mrs. Deacon. But how to do so until I had washed and dressed myself and set my mind working once more? For all I knew Mrs. Deacon might be already on her way to see Mr. Ward and demand that I be removed from her house. After sitting for some time huddled in despair, I tested fate by ringing the bell.

  To my unspeakable relief Anna, the maidservant, knocked on my door as usual and set off, obedient to my request, to fetch me tea and hot water. When these supplies were delivered I drank the tea thirstily before beginning to put myself to rights. I cleaned the blood from my face and hair: the wound was tender but not serious. I stripped off the Mercurial robe—soiled with sweat, blood, and punch—in which I had fallen asleep, and steeped it in the water to wipe down my whole body. Having drunk more tea, I opened the window and pushed my head out into a slight breeze and the noises of the street. I left it out there for some minutes to
adjust to the conditions of normal life. A little revived, I put on a clean shirt and clean stockings, which restored me further. My head still throbbed, but less painfully. With a little adjustment I made my wig all but hide the damage Mrs. Deacon had done to it. I felt hardly less wretched, but I was myself again.

  One thought in particular came to my aid. This predicament was mine to deal with, as a ship’s captain must deal with a storm at sea. Chance had led me into a strange career—living by pintle and pen. That being so, I had now to exert myself to cope with the difficulties into which I had strayed. My first task must be to secure my home ground by making peace, if I could, with my landlady.

  I summoned Anna once more and asked her to tell Mrs. Deacon that I would be most grateful if she would spare me a few minutes, since there was something I needed to say to her. Anna went composedly about the business, conveying no sense that she had heard mention of an attempted ravishment.

  Mrs. Deacon came in, as calm as ever, and looked at me with an appraising eye. My defense had been hastily prepared. I would put on a show of abjection, and had in reserve two further cards to play.

  “Mrs. Deacon, I must apologize most humbly for my misconduct last night. I could not feel more ashamed.” I played my first card: “You will not need to be told that what I did was the effect of drunkenness.”

  She remained expressionless for a moment, but then I thought that I detected the merest glint of a smile.

  “Are you suggesting, Mr. Fenwick, that only a drunken man could covet my person?”

  She had caught me off balance.

  “By no means, Mrs. Deacon,” I blustered. “I meant only that I was free of the restraints that normally—” Finding myself about to add “keep my hands from you,” I abandoned the sentence and hastily played the second card, twisting my wig awry.

  “I can but hope that this wound, which you quite properly inflicted, will seem to you an adequate punishment for my wrongdoing.” I attempted a smile. “I would never dare to reoffend.”

  “I had no thought of punishment—only of self-defense. But it looks to be quite an ugly cut.”

  “It was no more than I deserved.”

  “And no less.”

  I tried to appear suitably chastened, but no doubt simply looked a fool. I had run out of words.

  “You are young, Mr. Fenwick, and you do not alarm me. But I will not be bullied in my own house. I am a peaceable person: it offends me when I am forced to act out of character. The matter is closed. But if there is another such episode, we must part company.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Deacon. I shall not offend again.”

  This interview left me both humiliated and relieved. I had not felt such embarrassment since I was twelve years old. But at least I had managed to dispose of one of my self-inflicted problems. What should my next task be? Soon—very soon—I would have to write to my godfather describing the masquerade, but as yet I had no idea what I should say. Plainly I could not mention my assault on Mrs. Deacon without shriveling from bold seducer to seedy bully. As for Sarah and Kitty, it seemed that both the bird in the hand and the bird in the bush had flown away, never to return. What had I to communicate that he would possibly want to know? I sent for more tea, and sat brooding as I sipped. It occurred to me that in Crocker’s house a bevy of servants would now be employed in taking down screens and curtains, sweeping floors, and clearing away empty glasses and burned-out candles. The house would be its usual self by the end of the day. I should try to cleanse my own mind correspondingly.

  I remembered the events of the previous evening as one remembers a dream. If I was to write a convincing letter to Mr. Gilbert, it was necessary that I should record what impressions I had before they faded to nothing. Already I felt in myself a powerful instinct to forget everything that had passed, and I could not permit myself that indulgence. Accordingly, “with honest anguish and an aching head,” I set down the account already recorded. Some few memories were revived as I wrote, but I was alarmed to realize how much of the evening, especially of its latter stages, now eluded me altogether.

  By the time I had written out all that I could retrieve, it was the middle of the afternoon. The relief I felt at having completed the task was outweighed by the renewal of some of my miseries. I winced to think of my jaunty little Puck waiting in vain by the clock, and mourned at the memory of my three minutes of passion with Sarah before Crocker’s detestable monkey intervened. Was that to be the last and only time that I would kiss her?

  Partly in order to escape from these disagreeable thoughts I summoned the energy to take a walk. It seemed to me that no more than half my brain was awake, and that exercise might begin to rouse the other half.

  Needing quiet, I headed north, past the Foundling Hospital, through Lamb’s Conduit Fields, and on toward open country. I walked listlessly, but by degrees the exercise and the cleaner air refreshed me a little. It came to me now that my impressions of the previous evening had been influenced by the demeanor of Crocker himself. He had seemed to recoil from the very entertainment he had been at pains to provide. It was as though a glutton had sickened himself by procuring too lavish a banquet. But his response had been just: there had been something more gross in the conduct of the evening than might have been anticipated. It was not merely that many of the guests had strayed beyond the normal boundaries of propriety—so much was implicit in the very nature of the occasion. What was less to have been expected was their failure to improvise any new boundaries of their own. In particular my thoughts reverted to Latimer. If this promising young politician had not crowned his evening by plowing a sixty-year-old woman disguised as a nun, it could only have been through physical incapacity. Such thoughts made me the more concerned about the parts of the evening I could not recollect. Might I myself have been seen in a compromising situation—perhaps by Jane Page, perhaps even by Ogden?

  Whether I had or not, Kitty was now surely lost beyond recall. Even supposing her to be persuadable following this latest humiliation, I did not think I had it in me to work up a fresh set of prevarications and promises; nor would it be fair to do so. Sarah was a different case: quite apart from my feelings toward her, it was essential to my interests to maintain my pursuit of her if I could contrive an appropriate means. But that possibility now seemed remote.

  I had found my way well out of town on a rising slope of pastureland. Beginning to be hungry, I stopped at a roadside inn for a chop and a pint of ale. I sat outside alone, in country silence, looking at the smoke-wreathed towers of London a mile or two ahead. My mind seemed the clearer for the surrounding space. I drank some ale, and for the first time that day enjoyed a glimpse of hope concerning Sarah. My original thought, still a persuasive one, had been that now she was fully aware of my likely intentions, she would cut off all communication with me and remain quite out of reach: even if our paths crossed in the park, I could expect to elicit no more than distant courtesies. Now it came to me that I could perhaps turn that conclusion on its head. If a time should come when I could once more converse with Sarah alone, then the fact that we had gone so far meant that she would know we were linked by mutual temptation: any concession she then made must therefore be a prelude to the last concession. How likely it was that I would ever be in that situation, or how soon it might come about, were less encouraging considerations.

  Meanwhile I had a letter to write to Mr. Gilbert. I put it to myself that I might tell him, in a humorously rueful spirit, more or less what had passed between Sarah and myself. Since he wished to taste, vicariously, the pleasure of a young rake, might he not find an interest in his tribulations? The possibility did not survive more than two minutes’ consideration. However I told the story, its outcome could not but appear what it was: a defeat—quite probably a final defeat. Should I lie? Should I invent?

  As I pondered these questions I was shaken by a sudden surge of fury. It was my godfather who had plunged me into these
miseries, yet the old schemer could sit back serenely and wait for me to translate my discomfiture into entertainment.

  I chewed at my chop without tasting it, my mind as empty as the fields around me. As I did so, my attention was caught by a movement nearby. Two butterflies fluttered toward me in haphazard flight. Perhaps intrigued by the odor of the chop, they hovered nearby, circling each other as though in a dance. Mr. Yardley would have known their species and their gender: I could see only that they were brownish in color. It struck me that they must be dancing their way toward whatever miniature form of copulation butterflies might be supposed to enjoy. Although I watched them with no great interest, the brief distraction must have done my brain a service, for as they departed I realized what sort of letter I should attempt to write to Mr. Gilbert. I finished the ale and fell into a doze, sprawled across the table.

  It was a full half hour before I woke, with my headache renewed, and set out sleepily for London. Before reaching Cathcart Street, I stopped at a bookshop to purchase Clarissa—all eight volumes of it, together with a bag to carry them in. The proprietor was a quiet-spoken old fellow with faded eyes. A touch of drollery in his expression led me to talk to him as he took my money.

  “Have you read the work yourself ?”

  “I have, sir.”

  “And did you find it morally improving?”

  “I need no such improvement, sir. Temptation rarely comes my way. I am safe among my books, like a tortoise in his shell.”

  “Do you never pine for the world outside it?”

  “Oh, no, sir—I hear that it can be dangerous. But you might know that better than I.”

  “I will read Mr. Richardson,” said I, “and strive to be good.”

  Bearing a million words of morality, I walked on to my lodgings. Once in my parlor I rolled up the damp and disgusting garment I had worn the previous evening and gave it to the maid, with its accoutrements, to be thrown away. I unpacked Clarissa but had no appetite for reading. Putting the volumes aside, I went to bed.