The Skull and the Nightingale

by Michael Irwin

  I whispered a question:

  “You say your marriage is strange?”

  “How can I be sure? It is the only marriage I have known. But I think it is strange.”

  “Can you say why? Or will propriety prevent you?”

  “Why should I not tell you? You can judge for yourself.”

  She paused, creating a total silence:

  “Mr. Ogden is generous. He will buy me anything. But to him I am not a person: I am a possession. He married me—he told me as much—for my beauty. I do not boast: I speak only of his opinion. My person infatuates him.

  “He has no conversation. He could never have found a wife if he had not met me by chance.”

  She drew a long, tremulous breath.

  “I shall shock myself by saying what I mean to say—and saying it to a man. But this is my life—my only life: why should I not talk about it?

  “By day, in a drawing room, I could not do it. Shut up in this box, in darkness, I shall say what I choose. I shall tell you about my wedding night.”

  Another silence, then the whisper again, seemingly within my own head.

  “I was timid, not knowing how things should be done. Walter and I had conversed but little during our courtship. When we were alone in the bedroom, he was struck dumb.

  “He sat me on a chair and stood staring at me. He shifted his position and stared again. He lifted the candle to alter the light. All this time, in great confusion, I sat motionless. I could see that he was greatly agitated. He began to make adjustments to my hair or to my clothes, each time stepping back to view the alteration. It was as though he were making preparations to paint my portrait. At last he unfastened my dress, with shaking hands, and then pulled me upright to strip away all my clothes. He gazed at me as I stood naked and turned me about, grunting to himself. Suddenly he lifted me and flung me onto the bed. I cried out, but he forced himself upon me with a kind of snarl.

  “When he was done he rolled aside, still without a word, and fell into a profound sleep. I was left shocked and bleeding, bewildered by the secret practices of marriage.

  “In the morning he was in excellent humor, more easy than I had ever seen him, but he made no reference to what had taken place the night before.”

  Sarah stopped, as though she had concluded a chapter of her story. At that moment there came a clattering of hooves and a rattling of wheels the other side of the wall. As Sarah turned her head, startled, I inhaled her breath. I could have seized her, then and there, but had the self-command not to do so. When the sounds died away I ventured a question:

  “Has that performance been repeated?”

  “Night after night. It is the heart of our marriage. He views me, then he seizes me. I think he has no words for what he wants or what he feels.”

  Then she was insisting again, as though to make her meaning clearer:

  “You must understand: Walter is not cruel. He has some vision in his mind. Save for the final act, I could as well be a statue. He will have me stand naked, raise an arm, turn this way or that. Sometimes he has me stand by a mirror, so that he sees two of me.”

  “What goes through your mind?”

  “Usually nothing. I am lifeless. But on occasion I feel—something. He is obsessed with beauty and thinks me beautiful. This is flattering. And he has an art to make me more beautiful, with a costume, a jewel, a posture.”

  Somehow our positions had shifted slightly: I could feel the warmth of her body against my shoulder. We had reached an equilibrium of understanding that one false gesture could destroy. I spoke scarcely audibly, my lips touched her hair:

  “You were beautiful as Diana.”

  “So it seemed to me. I felt that I could have men kneeling at my feet.”

  “You know that I, for one, was ready to kneel.”

  Sarah breathed a stealthy laugh into the darkness.

  “I think kneeling alone would not have satisfied you.”

  “You indulged me very sweetly. But that damned monkey . . .”

  “It was like waking from a dream. I was back in the real world, and trying to remember how to behave in it.”

  “Here is the dream again. We could as well be in some mountain cave.”

  I reached to take her hand, but attempted nothing further. We sat silent together in mutual invisibility. For the moment I was calmly replete in this strange medium, my senses alert to the slightest of sounds or sensations. It was Sarah who spoke again:

  “Walter showed me how a prism can transform light into a rainbow. For me the masquerade had that effect. I could hardly bear to return to colorless daily life.”

  “Did Mr. Ogden feel as you did?”

  “The evening had a great effect upon him also. He said nothing as we went home—not a word, but I could sense his excitement. In the bedroom he tore off my costume, quite beside himself, and threw me to the floor. I have never seen him so frantic. He even bit me until the blood came.”

  “The man is an animal.”

  “He is not. I must do him justice. His inner fantasy is very vivid, and it seems that I inspire it. But he cannot put feelings into words. They overflow as physical excess.”

  “You are too generous.”

  “No. No longer. I have ceased to be generous. That is why I wrote to you.”

  She clasped my hand more tightly, and pressed against me.

  “He has made me rich. But if I fulfill his demands, am I not honoring my contract? Can he complain if I look beyond him?”

  “In search of what?”

  “Passion. Excitement. Joy. Why should I not be exceptional? Why should I not be an adventurer?”

  “Would you risk wickedness?”

  “With you—yes.”

  I drew her to me, gently, very gently. When I kissed her on the mouth, as at the masquerade, she put her arms around me, her body trembling against mine, tense as a violin string.

  I broke off to whisper: “It seems that your experience has not given you an aversion to carnal love.”

  “I have never known carnal love.”

  “It is this.”

  We kissed once more. I pushed off her cloak and felt for the softness of her breast. Her arms tightened round me and I winced as she bit my lip. Lost in darkness, caught up in a tangle of clothes, I was at once clutching her warm body, hearing her moan, feeling the wetness of her mouth, and tasting my own blood. The landau rocked beneath us as I leaned above her and reached below her skirts for the smooth skin of her thighs. A compound of images and sensations had fired my body to the hottest lust it had ever known. My mind, too, was on fire, but some small chamber within it was thinking still. Should I complete the conquest there and then? Yes, yes—because we were ravenous. But no, because we were already forced into contortions in this wobbling box, hobbled by fabrics, struggling with skirts and buttons, a slipping wig, a sword. Inflamed as I was, to the very brink of discharge, I might mortify us both: in seconds our intensities could precipitate as a few hot spurts of animal seed spilled into darkness. Better to wait, if I could bear to, and appease this passion with the fullness it deserved.

  As a timely distraction a second carriage rattled past a few feet away. Gently releasing Sarah, I sat back and with a heroic effort stifled the sweet pang rising in my loins. I waited for the noise, and for my own panting, to subside before speaking.

  “You must be loved as you deserve to be. Can we find somewhere else?”

  There was an immediate answer: “Not now. But very soon—if you are bold.”

  “Try me.”

  Sarah spoke as one summarizing a prepared stratagem.

  “On Friday my husband leaves for Malvern. I shall sleep here at my aunt’s. If I leave you a key, you can enter through the back door, behind this coach, and steal up to my room.”

  I forced myself to be cautious.

  �
�Surely we will be heard?”

  “My room is at the top of the rear staircase. No one sleeps near me.”

  “You will be taking a great risk.”

  “I have had enough of timidity. This will be my first adventure. But I swear that we will be safe.”

  I kissed her again, long and warmly, but drew away as an idea struck me:

  “Why not tonight? Why not now?”

  “There are precautions I must take. And I will be seeing my husband in the morning.”

  “I understand.”

  Sarah sat forward and pulled on her cloak. As she climbed out I retrieved my hat and followed her. We clung to each other, weak and shaken. She motioned me to stoop so that I could hear her whisper:

  “Come at midnight. I will hide two keys—one for the courtyard, one for the door just behind us. Leave your hat and sword in the landau. Once inside, you climb the staircase to the left. Two flights. At the top you will see my door on your right. It will be ajar.”

  “Where will I find the keys?”

  “I will show you.”

  We stole out by the gate through which we had entered. Sarah took my hand and drew it along the side of the square brick pillar to the left of that entrance. Halfway down it was a recess in the mortar, deep enough for me to insert two fingers. Sarah was breathing into my ear again:

  “I will leave the keys there. Should any difficulty arise, I will leave a note instead—and you can leave a reply.”

  “Have you no fears?”

  “Of course. But I am drunk. I have been drunk since the masquerade.”

  “On Friday night,” said I, “we shall be drunk together.”

  “At midnight,” she repeated. “Then I shall enjoy the first hour of my new life.”

  After one more kiss she slipped away and disappeared into the courtyard.

  I let my feet find their way back to Cathcart Street while my mind seethed. I could scarcely take in what had passed. This hour in a dark box had engendered the most powerful joy of my entire life, blending love, lust, sympathy, memory—all conducing to a paroxysm of physical sensation that I had contrived to suppress as one stifles an impending sneeze. How wonderful it had been—and how absurd.

  But all was now well. My black night at the masquerade could be forgotten. I had recaptured Sarah and would have a fine tale to tell Mr. Gilbert. I would have earned the promised reward, whatever that proved to be.

  Where would this lead? Here was certain joy for me, but possible ruin for Sarah. Could she return to the arms of her husband? Could she deceive him? For my part, could I ever bear to let her go?

  Such questions were for the future. I turned my back on them, exalted to be lost in the moment. Sarah and I—and my godfather also—had longed for the same outcome. And it would be secured in three days’ time.

  As I reached my lodgings I was quickened afresh, this time by a twinge of delicious fear. For weeks—for months—in the attempt to please my godfather I had been compelled to devise small adventures for myself. Now, suddenly, there was no need for me to instigate. A single conversation had plunged me into a rapid and possibly perilous narrative quite beyond my control. I would need to have my wits about me. I would need luck.

  My dear Godfather,

  There is startling progress to report.

  An anonymous letter, puzzling to me when it arrived, summoned me to a clandestine meeting with an unnamed party—who proved to be none other than Mrs. Ogden herself. She confided, with some passion, that she is made wretched by certain features of her married life—which indeed sound oppressive—and is after all eager to engage with a different partner.

  The upshot is an adventure which Mr. Lovelace would have relished. While her husband is in Malvern—an absence I owe to your shrewd intervention—she will stay with her aunt, who lives nearby, and I will be granted access to her bedchamber. To be specific: she will hide a key which will enable me to steal in through the back door at midnight.

  Now I can be at one with Lovelace in anticipatory elation. Although my proboscis does not quite reach the moon, I will attain my goal without resort to drugs or compulsion.

  I learned that the inflaming images of the masquerade had had their influence on the lady. Given that Mr. Ogden devised them, it would appear that he has contributed handsomely to the debauching of his wife.

  I am restive with anticipation. Were I a bull I would be tossing my head and pawing the ground. Is such a state of mind and body to be accounted happiness? Not quite, perhaps, since I long for the pleasure to be made complete. Will I find, as Lovelace apparently did, that when completed it has been concluded? You will very shortly, I hope, read my opinions on this matter.

  I remain, &c.

  Chapter 22

  The following morning, still bursting with elation, I felt compelled to visit Matt Cullen, my sole confidant, to describe what had passed and solicit his opinion. He grinned, as ever, but shook his head.

  “This is folly, Dick. You will be seized and charged with robbery.”

  “By my old friend Mrs. Kinsey? Never. Besides which, I trust Sarah’s good sense. If she says that we are safe, then safe we shall be. At need she can hide me in a closet.”

  “You will have a fine tale to tell—one to raise a protuberance even from Mr. Gilbert.”

  “I have not forgot my scruples,” said I, “nor the advice that you yourself gave me. This is private business. I consider Sarah to be under my protection. My godfather will receive no more than the pips and the peelings of the encounter.”

  That same afternoon, to occupy myself, I went to the park for a stroll in the early September sunshine. I was hailed by Colonel and Mrs. Jennings and paused to chat. The conversation was perforce with Bel, her husband withdrawing into the abstracted affability that masked his deafness.

  “Ben told me that he saw you at the masquerade,” said she. “But I did not—or if I did, I failed to penetrate your disguise.”

  “You spoke to me, but my face was lost in a beard. Did you enjoy the evening?”

  “To be candid my recollection of it is uncertain. But I have reason to think that I must have done.”

  There being no more than a glint of drollery in her manner, I acknowledged her words with no more than the hint of a smile—but we understood each other. When the two moved on I retired behind a tree to laugh aloud. How various and freakish were human beings in their gratifications. Perhaps after all I could consider myself an ordinary, sensible fellow.

  On the morning when Ogden was due to depart, my exhilaration was tempered by unease: there was still scope for mischance. The coach for Worcestershire left, as I had good reason to know, from the Dragon, in Fleet Street. Once again I took the precaution of making sure that Mr. Ogden did indeed depart. Standing in an alley beside the inn, I saw his thick calves stomp by and watched him haul his heavy body aboard. My distaste for him was instantly refreshed. As the coach set off I could have shouted aloud to think that in a few hours I would be pleasuring his wife.

  My dear Godfather,

  I am afraid that the content of this letter will suffice merely to account for the failure that its brevity implies.

  True to the arrangement that Sarah and I had made, I went to Margaret Street at midnight last night. Having watched Mr. Ogden take the coach for Worcestershire in the morning, I was full of confidence. Once satisfied that the coast was clear, I slipped round to the quiet corner behind Mrs. Kinsey’s house and fumbled in the crevice where the key was to have been hidden. All hope was instantly dashed as my fingers encountered, not a key, but a folded note. The message was as follows:

  I cannot see you tonight. After all I am not yet ready to take this step.

  I am ashamed of my inconsistency, but my fear was that all might not have gone well between us now that I have felt these doubts.

  Can you forgive me for having brought you here, wit
h high expectations, for nothing? I can hardly forgive myself. Yet I need only a little more time, a little more resolve, to bring about the meeting we planned. It will happen—I promise it will.

  I am afraid that your godson, alone at midnight in a most respectable street, gave vent to a rousing volley of curses before turning on his heel and returning to his lodgings.

  This morning finds me less sullen and more philosophical. I have observed in the past Mrs. Ogden’s extreme fluctuations of mood and motive. Being impulsive, she is always likely to venture a promise somewhat bolder than she can fulfill, and later recoil from it, as on this occasion. I have no doubt that in a very short time her conduct will catch up with her desires. Already this morning she will be regretting her own timidity. I will leave in our hiding place a cool acknowledgment that I hope may hasten such a reaction. If all goes as I wish and expect, last night’s rebuff will come to seem no more than an incidental delay. I reserve the right, however, to exact some little retribution for the slight. Rest assured that you will hear the full story as it unfolds.

  I remain, &c.

  Having written this letter to my godfather, I set down in my journal a full account of what had actually taken place, trying to be as precise as possible, in case my memory later deceived me.

  It was a cool night. There had been one or two sharp showers, and more seemed imminent: the streets were patched with puddles. I was dressed to pass unrecognized and to be ready to defend myself, at need, in the dangerous midnight darkness. I made my approach by the same alley as before, and on this occasion watched from the corner as the watch passed along the length of Margaret Street. When they were gone, all was still. I went swiftly to the back of Mrs. Kinsey’s house, reached in our hiding place for a key—but found only a note, damp from the earlier rain. I tore it slightly as I drew it out.

  Unable to read it in the dark, I hurried back along Margaret Street, but soon became aware of footsteps behind me. Anxious to avoid even the slightest chance of being accosted, I quickened my pace—but heard my follower quicken also. In response I began to run, as best I could in the dark, jumping over puddles and stumbling on the cobblestones. Feeling I would be more secure on known territory I turned into Wyvern Street, heading toward Tom Crocker’s house. After fifty yards or so I checked my steps and now heard nothing. Here it was darker yet. I stood stock-still for a minute or two, glad to recover my breath.