A Maggot - John Fowles (22 page)

A. His initials.

Q. You had no suspicion or forewarning of this
whatsoever?

A. Not a particle, sir. It may be if I had had my
wits more about me - I confess there was a circumstance at Taunton.
Jones came to me there, and told some tale of having used most of his
earnest money to settle a debt in London, so that he now found
himself too little provided, and asked me to advance a sum upon the
rest of his wages for the journey. Which I did, and noted in a
pocket-book I keep for such purposes.

Q. How much?

A. A guinea.

Q. You were not surprised he should need such a sum?

A. I know him too well, sir. Where he can't impose by
his braggarting, he will impose by treating.

Q. Now, Mr Lacy, what credence do you put upon this
letter?

A. I was angry, most angry that he should betray me
so. Yet I thought it true, sir, at that time. I knew he came from
Swansea or thereabout, and had heard him speak of a mother

still living there.

Q. Who kept an alehouse?

A. Yes, so I believe he once told me.

Q. You say at that time - why not now?

A. Because he has not come for the rest of his money.

Q. Might he not have found work at Swansea?

A. Then he would have written. I know the man.

Q. Enquired you at the inn as to this - that there
was truly a ship for Swansea that day? That Jones had asked after
such?

A. I did not, sir, upon Mr Bartholomew's
instructions. For I had hardly read it when the man Dick came to
bring me to Mr B., who knew Jones had gone, Dick having told him. And
thought it might be by my instruction. To which I was obliged to tell
him not, and the truth of the matter.

Q. You showed him the note?

A. At once.

Q. It alarmed him?

A Less than I feared. He was kind to my
embarrassment, though he had hired Jones upon my recommendations.. He
questioned me a little, as to what belief we might give the letter. I
replied as to you and that I was sure he need have no alarm for his
own purposes, since Jones knew even less of them than I. That if he
had had some evil intent, he would not have written his note, nor
left it so late to act upon it.

Q. Jones knew you were commanded to return by Exeter,
you say?

A. Yes. I had told him that.

Q. What instructions did Mr Bartholomew give as to
this new turn of events?

A. That we must show no sign that what Jones had done
was without our knowledge, but pretend it was at our instruction.
That is, leave together, then go our separate ways and proceed as
before. I confess I did not relish the prospect of riding alone in
such a wild and sparse-peopled country, but I held my tongue. I felt
myself most to blame for the loss of my intended companion, such as
he was.

Q. Have you thought on what might prevent the fellow
from claiming his due of you?

A. I have, and have no answer. It is most unlike.

Q. It would not be his guilt at leaving you in the
lurch?

A. No. He's too poor to be tender on that point; or
not to try.

Q. He was not married?

A. He never spoke of a wife. I did not know him as I
might a friend, Mr Ayscough. I have seen him put on a pretence of
fine manners, but not such as would pass him for a gentleman, however
humble, or that I should impose upon Mrs Lacy. He came once or twice
to my house, but never past the door. There were a dozen others such
as he that I truly know no worse or better, and might have
recommended to Mr Bartholomew. It so fell I had met Jones a day or
two previous in the street and spoken with him, and knew he had no
work.

Q. Very well. We come to your parting with Mr
Bartholomew.

A. I could not tell you the name of the place. In two
miles or a little more we came to a fork, where there stood a
gallows, Mr Bartholomew stopped and said it was the place, that in
some few miles my road should come to the highway from Barnstaple to
Exeter and I had but to follow that, and should with any luck find
other travellers to journey with. That I might sleep at Crediton or
straight to Exeter, as I chose.

Q. Said he no more?

A. Yes, we must wait a minute or two while the fellow
Dick took my baggage from the pack-horse and tied it to the beast I
rode. And I forget, Mr Bartholomew had insisted most solicitously
that I take Jones's blunderbuss with me, though 1 doubt I should have
brought myself to discharge it, except under most desperate need; but
fortune was with me, none arose. As to our parting, Mr B. and I
dismounted and walked a few steps away. Once again he thanked me and
begged my excuses for the doubts he had occasioned in me, and prayed
I would ride on with no shadow in my soul, as he assured me I should,
or would, had he been able to divulge the entire truth.

Q. Still he gave no more precise indication of where
he went, or whom he hoped to meet?

A. No, sir.

Q. Seemed he more confident in his demeanour?

A. I would rather say resigned, as if the die were
cast. I remarked that the sun at least smiled on his enterprise,
since the day was a true old May Day, not a cloud to be seen. And he
said, Yes, I try to find that good augury, Lacy. When I then hoped he

would encompass this interview he so desired, he
merely bowed and said, I shall soon know. He added nothing else.

Q. The maid and the man - they seemed not surprised
that you left their company?

A. No doubt they had been told that here my part
ended, as indeed it did. I shook hands with Mr Bartholomew, we
mounted, they went their way and I went mine. Sir, I have told you
all that I know. I am sorry to disappoint where you would most have
me say more. I think I did warn you it must come to this.

Q. Now I would put a case to you. Supposing Jones had
known himself right in his first suspicion, that the maid was no
maid, but a whore; that he had more forcefully charged her with it
than he led you to believe, and demanded money for his silence, and
received it, either from her or Mr B. himself. That is, say he was
suborned from your interest, and well paid to remove himself for fear
that he might tell you what he knew, once you had parted as planned
from Mr B. Is this not more likely, and why he hath foregone his
agreed wages? May he not already have received them there in Devon,
and no doubt more than was bargained in the beginning?

A. I cannot credit he would trick me so.

Q. I may tell you his suspicion was right, Lacy. Your
modest maid was neither modest nor maid, but hired fresh out of
Claiborne's stews.

A. I am dumbfounded, sir.

Q. You were too fond, my friend. I know Jones's kind.
Their honesty is ever where their interest lies. A lifetime's trust
is nothing to a few guineas' profit.

A. But why was such a creature as she brought with
us?

Q. There, I have still to determine. One would
presume, for Mr B.'s pleasure. You assure me there was no sign of
that?

A. None that I saw.

Q. And for the fellow Dick being taken to her bed,
you have none but Jones's word?

A. And their manner together, Mr Ayscough. In him it
was naked he lusted after her. She was more discreet, yet I smelt a
closeness there.

Q. Let us return to your parting. You rode thence as
directed, to Exeter?

A. I soon fell in upon the high-road with a
pack-horse train, and two stout fellows to guard it, and did not bid
them farewell until we were inside the city gate at Exeter; where I
stayed two days to repose myself, and sold my horse; then took

coach to London, on the third.

Q. And to the enquiries of your fellow travellers?

A. I dare say the most disagreeable old crab they
have ever coached with. They gained nothing.

Q. You have told Mrs Lacy of your adventures?

A. I have, sir. She is discretion itself, I assure
you. Not all ladies in my profession are as that shameless hoyden,
Mrs Charke, that has brought such distress through her malicious
conduct and ill-repute upon her worthy father, Mr Cibber; far from
it, sir. She is the exception, not the rule. No one who knew Mrs Lacy
could impute to her loose morals or the least indiscretion in private
matters.

Q. Then you have a rare pearl in her sex. None the
less, Lacy, I trust you will, having presented my compliments,
request her to continue in that most estimable quality.

A. You may be confident, Mr Ayscough. Now we are
done, I feel my conscience much relieved. Would that my apprehensions
were in the same case. May I venture now to ask, what you informed me
of Mr B's servant - I cannot forget that?

Q. He was found hanged, Lacy, not three miles from
where you saw him last. Whether by his own hand, as it seemed, or by
some other evil person, and made to appear as self-murder, is as
undetermined as so much else.

A. And of his master there is no news?

Q. Not one whit, nor of the whore. You may think
yourself lucky that you took the Exeter road.

A. I now know it, sir. I would I had taken no part.

Q. No doubt he would have found another to aid him.
Your part was small matter. He was set upon something such as this,
long before he sent his servant to your door.

A. Upon disobedience?

Q. What would you say of a young man in your own
calling, who having shown talents and powers far beyond the ordinary,
having in addition as rich expectations in his private life as upon
the public stage, sets his face, upon principles he does not deign to
declare, against all that Providence most plainly designs for him? To
say nothing of spurning all the reasonable hopes and counsels of his
family and friends? That is not disobedience alone, Lacy. The common
people of the county of my birth have a proverb of a child grown to a
troublesome man. They say the Devil rocked his cradle. By which they
would say, he is not so much to blame for his perversity as some
malign accident of nature. Mr B. was given all, except contentment
with his seeming most fortunate lot. He you knew was no hobbledehoy
son of a gentleman nobody, that much you will have divined, I doubt
not. But enough, I begin to say too much, Lacy, I thank you for your
evidence, and hope we part on better terms than we began. You will
allow we must both be actors on occasion, though it is for different
ends.
 

Jurat die annoque praedicto coram me

Henry Ayscough

* * *

Lincoln's Inn, the 27th August

Your Grace,

What Yr Grace will here read attached speaks for
itself, and I proceed now as Yr Grace may guess. My men are already
upon the road to Wales. If the rogue Jones be in his native place,
they shall find him more soon than late, I doubt not. My nose tells
me Lacy is no liar, and may be credited, tho' he credited far too
much himself. He is a child at heart, behind his airs, like all his
kind, and would be seen better bred and more important than he is; Yr
Grace may judge him a fool, but not a perjuring villain. The bawd
Claiborne should have her back flogged to the bone, were there
justice in this world, and spend the rest of her shameless life in
the colonies. Plain hanging is too sweet for such as her.

I waited upon Lord B. this forenoon and showed him Yr
Grace's letter and my authority, and then laid such facts as was
needful before him. He declared he was innocent of all knowledge of
them until this day; had supposed his Lordship abroad; confessed he
was a party to the matter at the bagnio, and thought the wench gone
likewise abroad for his Lordship's pleasure. I asked Lord B. if he
had at any time suspected that his Lordship's intentions were not
what he publicly pretended. He replied that his Lordship had talked
much of his tour of Europe and he had believed him.

Upon my further questions Lord B. vouchsafed that
tho' he had seen his Lordship but infrequently since their Cambridge
days, he counted him an honoured friend and was always pleased to
renew their old intimacy, when he was in town; that he found himself
somewhat surprised, on this last occasion, when his Lordship pressed
to be introduced to Claiborne's bagnio, since he had always supposed
his Lordship insusceptible to the temptations of the flesh and indeed
seeming indifferent to womankind in general, since he had never yet
married; but that his Lordship now appeared determined (ipsissima
verba) to make up for lost time.

(I spare Yr Grace some more particular expressions of
this determination that Lord B. described, since I believe them but
said to add colour to a supposed debauchery and cloak his Lord,
ship's true purpose.)

Lord B. further said that he himself had first
proposed that his Lordship should seek the favours of the woman in
question; that he himself had been their recipient and had vouched
for her shills and charms. Lord B. then used a blasphemous figure I
dare not repeat to your Grace, but so as to say there was no better
at her lewd traffick in London. I requested to know in what these
charms consisted, beyond the carnal. Lord B. replied that it was part
in a seeming modesty, the more striking for being found in a world of
brass; that it lay not in any particular faculty of wit or speech,
since she spoke little, and then simply; that he knew of more than
one who had gone in boldly to her, not believing report, yet had come
out tamed; that since to the accustomed rake the most prized flesh is
the newest, some now counted her stale meat, but he knew of none
better for such as his Lordship, who took their first step in the
Cyprian rites, which is why he proposed her to him; that in some
licentious imitation of Tacitus he had lately read she was described
meretricum regina initiarum lenis, which he deemed just.