The Strange Adventures of H

by Sarah Burton

  “What is this?” shouted Lord A, whom I had never seen so angry; he was perfectly incandescent with rage. “What are you doing here?” he demanded of Charlie, who could not yet work out where he was or what was happening. “What is he doing here?” he demanded of me.

  “I… we… he wanted another lesson,” I said feebly.

  “What are you doing here, Uncle?” stammered Charlie.

  “Get dressed!” he commanded Charlie, who scrambled out of bed and began to look for his things, which Janey had helpfully gathered together and now thrust in his direction. “Wait for me in the next room!” Charlie obeyed. “Now you silly little slut,” Lord A said to me, with unaccustomed rudeness and taking me roughly by the arm, “what game are you playing? He was supposed to come once only. Do you mean to make a fool of me?”

  “No!” I cried, “I… he… ”

  “This is the first time I ever knew you lost for words, Miss! I demand an explanation! He who pays the piper calls the tune, does he not? So? Give me your song, Miss!”

  “You do not pay, sir,” I said.

  “If he pays, I pay! It is all the same!”

  “No one pays,” I said quietly.

  “I say,” said Charlie, who had returned, alarmed, at the raised voices, “should I… should I have… offered something, Halcyon?”

  “So… ” Understanding dawned on Lord A’s face. “Halcyon, is it?” He laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “So this is an affair of the heart, am I to understand? How touching. A whore in love! This is rare! This is rich indeed!”

  “Prithee, Uncle, you mustn’t talk to her like that,” entreated Charlie. “She is my friend! She has shown me the way! Just like you said!”

  “Silence, boy! This is no business of yours,” snapped Lord A.

  I was weeping by this time. I did not dare to appeal to Lord A’s better nature, for old time’s sake, as I doubted how much Charlie knew of my friendship with his uncle, as we had never spoken of it, or even how much he understood of my profession. I was at a loss at what to do or say for the best, for I entertained a healthy respect for other people’s lies.

  “Will I put the kettle on, madam?” asked Janey, desperately, who had been standing by all the time.

  “Damn the kettle! Get out!” shouted Lord A.

  “Please don’t cry, Halcyon,” said Charlie, brimming up himself. “I don’t understand all this, but… please don’t cry.”

  “Prithee be not so blind to think her true for weeping,” said Lord A scornfully, “for sighs and tears are the whore’s ammunition, the tools and implements of their damned profession.”

  “Why do you use me so cruelly?” I implored Lord A, but again dared not appeal to our history, for fear of what Charlie did not know.

  “A whore?!” cried Charlie. “How can you call her that?”

  “What do you think she is, you fool?” demanded Lord A.

  “But she is a lady, Uncle!” protested Charlie. “Look at her!” I stood before them, dear reader, as naked as the day I was born, and Charlie quickly realised my appearance did nothing to serve his argument. “Look at her house!” he appealed. “Consider her clothes!” he added pathetically, “When she is wearing them.”

  “That’s no rule, child, for whores wear as good linen as honest women. Be assured, fine clothes and good linen are the working tools of their trade.”

  “I love her, sir! I will marry as you wish, and I will never see her again, but I protest and declare and you must know that I love her! And she loves me!” Charlie seemed desperate – uncomprehending and utterly desperate.

  “Trust not to that, you poor animal,” said Lord A with a pitying look at him, and then a hard look for me, “for women of her profession love men but as far as their money goes. She knows you are making a good marriage and would have a part of the spoils, that is all. Do not make the mistake of considering the principles of a mistress beyond those of a good companion. They are both the instruments of pleasure for a time, and can be trusted to nothing beyond that meeting.”

  A terrible expression came over Charlie’s features and I knew with the most heavy sinking feeling that the truth – the truth I had not considered he did not know – was gradually revealing itself horribly to him.

  “Uncle, am I to understand that you… you and Halcyon… ”

  “Me and half a dozen others, yes! Your ‘sweetheart’ doles her private favours to all mankind alike for profit.”

  “Not all mankind… ” I ventured, stupidly, thinking that such a distinction had any meaning to Charlie.

  “Any beast with money, to be sure!” asserted Lord A. “Your true jilt shall cope with any brute for profit, with two legs or with four, take that for Gospel,” he added bitterly.

  “That will do, sir!” shrieked Janey, who was wielding a broomstick. “Out, both of you, out! Out!”

  “Don’t concern yourself; we are leaving,” said Lord A, throwing me the most baleful look. “You may consider our association at an end. And the direst consequences will attend any attempt by you to trouble either of us again.” As he turned to go, gathering Charlie to him, he seemed to hesitate a moment, and then, still facing away from me, added: “What a fool I’ve been. I thought you were different, H.”

  “I thought you were different too,” I said, though perhaps too quietly to be heard, as they went down the stairs.

  When they had gone Janey approached me with a most concerned expression.

  “How do you do, sweetheart?” she asked.

  “Very bad, Janey,” I said. “Most wretched, in fact,” and I fell on my bed, too tired and too troubled with inexpressible grief even to cry. (For you know, I was, and remain, a foolish thing given overmuch to weeping.) And Janey, bless her dear heart, lay by me all night, murmuring reassurance, though I was inconsolable.

  The days that followed passed as if in a bad dream. Whenever I gained a sane moment, a moment of tranquility, perhaps, with little Mary, or found some peace looking into the fire, with Janey beside me (for she never quit my side throughout my great trouble and unhappiness), the awful happenings of that night pounced upon me, making my heart leap and race till I felt sick and even began to fear for my sanity. I thought interminably of Charlie’s range of expressions, however hard I tried not to, that expressed the death of our connection that night, and also suffered a more complex pain, underlying everything, attending how my friendship with Lord A had unravelled, and how it had obviously been such a slight and expendable thing to him, a fact I had never considered. His words that damningly confirmed my true status, that I was an “instrument of pleasure for a time, and could be trusted to nothing beyond that meeting” shocked me repeatedly, with the palpable sting of a slap in the face every time I thought of them. I had been in a fool’s paradise, I realised, to think there was any such thing as honour or decency in my transactions, and as a consequence, I found I could not face any of my other lovers, and accordingly sent word that I could not receive them.

  I do not think I went really mad, as I was able sometimes to laugh at myself, albeit in a bitter, hard way, but I will admit to having had strange thoughts. I believed myself a bad and worse than useless creature, and vexed myself and puzzled over what H stood for, as though this not having a proper name meant something, or H itself meant something. It could not be Hope or Happiness, so was it Hell or Hate? Janey clearly feared for me, was happy to carry my messages of cancellation, and sought a hundred ways to cheer me and bring me out of my melancholies and obsessions. She insisted I walked for an hour every day, just to “get about”, as she said, and to “be among real people” as I think she knew how unreal people, or rather memories and impressions of real people, crowded my fancy. And this is why what I saw a few days later was so troubling. I was walking through Covent Garden and suddenly saw Charlie. This was not unusual, for I had been in the habit for some time of suddenly seeing Charlie everywhere. However, this really was Charlie, as I thought, helping a lady out of a carriage, who might have been his aunt, and
then helping another lady out, who by her age I judged to be his fiancée, Miss Sophia Phipps, and then standing by respectfully as Lord A got out, which confirmed I was not dreaming.

  But most distressing of all was the fact that I recognised Miss Phipps. No change of wig, no powder or patching, no passage of time could disguise the awful truth that Charlie’s heiress was none other than… I searched my brain, tried to get a hold on my sense of reality, told myself I must be dreaming, or even having a waking nightmare (which Janey, due to my propensity towards them, and the range of anxieties they played out to dreadful ends, had named a “mightmare”)… but to cut a long diversion short, the woman whom Charlie gallantly guided out of the carriage – the woman to whom he was to be married – I knew with awful certainty to be none other than Sylvia.

  65

  All I had known from Lord A of the woman Charlie was to marry was that she was an heiress, a widow and a virgin, to boot. The only part of this I knew to be true of the woman I had seen was that Sylvia was indeed my cousin Roger’s widow (though they had parted before his death in circumstances most unflattering to the idea of marital duty, as he lay dying of the awful visitation) and that she was at that time definitely with child, so hardly your blushing virgin. Where she had been in the time since her escape from Cheapside in the plague year, after she had turned me into the street with nothing but the clothes on my back, I had no idea, but I knew she now represented herself to Lord A’s family as something quite other than what she really was. Worse, Charlie was marrying her with the sole idea that she was heiress to a substantial fortune, which would save his uncle’s estate, and unless I did something to disabuse them she would latch herself on to him, and could be nothing but the worst kind of burden to him, and to Lord A and the family, adding to, rather than relieving, their troubles.

  When I got home I told Janey immediately. She was all for my leaving my discovery alone and letting events run their course. It was not my affair, she said, and could do me no good to involve myself. Besides, had not Lord A treated me most shamefully? Why should I trouble myself about what happened to him and his kin? But even in these objections, I knew Janey was merely humouring me. It is a most sad aspect of an affliction of the mind, which Janey now believed I laboured under, that one is not believed even when one has lucid moments of clarity and sanity, and I detected Janey doubted I had a true grasp on reality. Had I really seen Sylvia? Had I even seen Charlie? Was my mind not, in its great turmoil, mixing up all my past troubles and producing one new one? These, I knew, were her unspoken doubts.

  I discovered the extent of her concern when Godfrey called not on a Sunday, and I could immediately detect in his line of conversation that Janey had primed him with accounts of my madness.

  “I hear you think you have seen Sylvia,” he began.

  I confess, dear reader, that I walked clean out of the room and locked the door to my bedchamber behind me. My poor head was in such a mithering tangle I simply had not the patience to go over everything with Godfrey again. They did not understand. No one understood.

  But Godfrey, bless his dear tender kind heart, stood at my door pleading with me for what must have been most of an afternoon, and remained even when I did not answer, declaring he had no intention of leaving until he saw me with his own eyes. It was only when, as a last resort, he threatened to send for Jasper that I opened the door.

  He eyed me suspiciously.

  “How do you do, H?” he asked.

  “Ask the frog how the mouse does,” I said in an agonised voice. “Ask the bat how does the owl! They do not know!” and I howled like a banshee and grabbed him by the elbows and danced round the room with him until I eventually decided to grant him mercy and said, “Ha! I had you there, I think!” and he perceived I had been fooling with him all the time (for I could at times smile at myself) and burst out laughing in relief.

  “Come now, H, though,” he said at last. “What’s going on? What’s all this about the dreaded Sylvia?”

  He knew of course from my revelations at The Bear the fullest version of what had passed between us. I told him simply the little I had recently discovered.

  “And you have a special affection for the young man concerned?” he asked in the kindest possible manner. “And a professional attachment to his uncle?” Damn dear Janey; she had clearly told all.

  I sighed.

  “Not anymore. That is all in the past. I have no axe to grind, none at all. I simply see a great wrong looming to those that were my friends, and remain good people, and would prevent it, but lack the means to do so.”

  Now it was Godfrey’s turn to sigh.

  “Let it go, H. Marry Jasper and forget everything else. Get out, while you have the chance. Look about you: unhappy things happen every day. See the beggars in Covent Garden, the poor skinny whores by Hatton Wall, the sad relics without number that are pulled from the river. You cannot save them all. It is not your calling. Your responsibility is to look after H.”

  I did not answer, for I knew the truth in what he said.

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” he continued. “Your lover boy marries a harridan. Happens every day. But consider the other side. What is Sylvia but a survivor, like you? Perhaps she will subside into a good respectable wife. You have no way of knowing.”

  Godfrey of course could not feel as keenly as I did – in fact I surprised myself by the strength of the feelings that rushed through my being the minute I clapped eyes on her again – about the woman who had shown me and my sister such cruelty. It was not, if I am honest, only that I wished to prevent her hurting those I believed to be good people; my personal pride was also piqued. If I could not have Charlie it seemed most unkind that the one who should have him was the only surviving author of my misfortune, indeed could be charged with setting me on the road which had dumped me down to this hidden economy, which prevented my dealing with respectable people on the square, and thus prohibited me from ever being considered in her place. And besides all that, if I were entirely and truly honest with myself, to think on Sylvia enjoying the benefit of the many bedroom tricks I had taught Charlie quite choked me.

  I began to tell Godfrey of an idea I had worked out. I had seen in a play, and had heard of true cases besides, how a priest could be substituted with another person (say, an actor), thus producing a marriage that was in fact invalid, giving those who had reason to doubt the character of one or other of the parties time to produce their evidence, or giving the unworthy party to the marriage time to expose their devious ends. And would he be willing to help me out in such an endeavour?

  “You are always about some plot or other, H!” exclaimed Godfrey with unusual fervour. “No more of your damned projects! Damn your stratagems! If you must play games do not drag in your friends. To rescue little Joe was fair enough, indeed an admirable and worthy enterprise I am proud to have undertaken, but this… this is an old score and you would do well to leave it unsettled. I will not help you. And there it is.”

  And he took his leave of me, and I cannot blame him for it.

  66

  I can now see, of course, how unrealistic my plan must have seemed, but – and I freely acknowledge that I may yet have laboured under an illness of the mind – I found I could not leave it alone, as my friends had advised. The next day, which was the day before the proposed wedding, I took myself to Lord A’s house. Janey had flatly refused to carry the message in my place and clearly considered the whole enterprise great folly. I had never approached his home before and had no wish to embarrass him but made it as plain to the footman as possible that I would not quit the step until his master came down to speak to me.

  Lord A eventually emerged, vastly irate, and not at all pleased to see me.

  “It is outrageous that you visit me here,” he said, “and a clear abridgement of our bond.”

  “I thought you had dissolved our bond,” I could not help saying, “but in any case, the warning I bring you does not enrich me. I come merely for
your own good.”

  “What warning?” he asked.

  “Miss Phipps is a charlatan. She is not an heiress. She was married to my cousin and is a most wicked woman. She will bring your family not a penny – nothing, in fact, but misery.”

  Although Lord A looked surprised, it was immediately clear to me that he did not believe a word of it. I detected a woman’s voice call him from within.

  “I see that you have conceived a most inappropriate affection for Charlie,” he said in a low and very angry voice, “and I believe you now wish to wreck this marriage by any means. I wish I had never set eyes on you. Go away, and do not bother us again or I will not hesitate to set the watch on you.” He moved to close the door.

  “If you do not abandon the marriage, I shall be there; I shall prevent it,” I said.

  Lord A looked horrified. The woman’s voice called again.

  “Do nothing,” he said. “I will come to you.” And he closed the door.

  And indeed he did, only an hour or so later. Janey received him with a surly face, for she was both angry at the harsh way he had used me last time he was under our roof, and embarrassed at the trouble I was causing. I knew she would be listening at the door to our conversation, for she monitored what she perceived to be my madness like any nurse.

  “I understand you think you have reason to raise an objection to my nephew’s marriage tomorrow,” he said patiently. “Please enlighten me.”

  And then I told him all I knew of Sylvia’s character. He heard me out, and then declared that this person could not possibly be Sophia Phipps. I asked him on what authority he had formed his opinion of her character and background. Letters, he said. This he could see I scorned.