Hugh Kenrick (18 page)

Then both Hugh and the stranger noticed that some of this alley’s denizens were standing a few steps away, listening to their conversation. Hugh planted the abandoned swords upright in the ground. “These I do not want,” he said. He gestured with an arm to the Strand. “Let us have that ale, sir. Do you know of a congenial place?”

The pair turned and strode away from the scene. “My own destination, sir. The Fruit Wench, on the boulevard ahead, near where Villiers Street meets it.”

“I’ve seen the sign. Is it a good tavern?”

“Good enough that tradesmen frequent it. And in the rear, a comfortable coffeehouse. The proprietress likes to see half her patrons sober.” The stranger paused. “I have been rude, sir. May I congratulate you on your superb knifery? It was almost worth being ambuscaded by those ruffians to see such a display of skill.”

“Thank you, sir. But it has left me tired.”

“You did not fight tiredly.”

“No. I was fighting for my life. I had committed myself, and if I had slipped, I might have shared your likely fate.”

“You might have suffered more, for having interfered,” remarked the stranger.

They were nearing the Strand, and walked quietly in lockstep. Then the stranger asked, “May I know the true name of my savior, sir?”

Hugh laughed. “You don’t believe it is Drury Trantham?”

The stranger grunted once in humor. “Forgive me the doubt, sir, but I am acquainted with that man’s marvelous adventures. I did not believe he came to life and jumped from his pages to rescue me.”

Hugh almost gasped with delight. Never before had he met another person who had read
Hyperborea
. He glanced at the indistinct face of his companion and offered his hand. “Hugh Kenrick, of Danvers and Windridge Court.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the stranger, shaking Hugh’s hand, and as though some question had been answered in his mind.

“And yours?” asked Hugh, eager to know the identity of someone whom he was certain to be a friend.

They had entered the Strand. The light from a lamppost bathed them in a flickering glow. The stranger stopped resolutely beneath the lamppost.
“I am Glorious Swain,” said the stranger.

Hugh could see the man’s face now, and gazed up at a countenance as black as the alley from which they had just emerged.

G
LORIOUS
S
WAIN WAS A LANKY BUT ELEGANT MAN, A HEAD AND A HALF
taller than Hugh. He was dressed in a neat blue frock coat and waistcoat, from which he had already brushed the mud and dirt it had acquired from his encounter with the Mohocks. He sported a fine brown tricorn and a combed and powdered peruke. His face was severe, reflective, sedate. It had the flat, angular contours of a lump of coal.

Hugh was stunned. He had never before spoken with a black man; had never even met one. He had only seen black men from a distance, working as porters, or carpenters, or liveried servants. The neighboring Pumphretts had one. He had seen one or two black women near the Lawful Keys, acting as laundresses, and one or two who were maidservants of fashionable women shopping on the Strand. Black people were exotic human beings to Hugh, as exotic as kilted Scotsmen. He knew that most were slaves, but that some were freemen. He brazenly studied the face of Glorious Swain, noting with fascination all the hues and valleys of black and how they worked together to form a sum of character and intelligence. The frank brown eyes returned this survey with patience and humor.

“What a name!” exclaimed Hugh at length. “‘Glorious!’ How did you come by it? Did you adopt it, or were you baptized with it?”

Glorious Swain did not answer these questions. Instead, he asked, “You are not disappointed with my ebon hue, sir?”

Hugh frowned. “No, sir.”

“You do not regret having risked your life to save mere me from those rogues?”

“No! Especially not now!”

“And—why not?”

“You look like an interesting man. And you have read
Hyperborea
.”

“Is there something…special about my color that piques your curiosity?”

Hugh shrugged. “I am sure that your pallor is but a superficial aspect of your character, sir.”

Swain barked once in irony. “Hardly superficial, sir! But you are right. It is not integral to my manliness.” He paused. “Would you regard me, sir,
as an exceptional exemplar of my race?”

“I believe you would be exceptional in any society.”

“That is begging the question.”

Hugh shrugged again. “I have not met others of your race, sir, so I cannot honestly answer your question.”

“That is a better answer,” said Swain. “But it is true: I would be exceptional in any society.” He smiled at the look of disappointment on Hugh’s face. “And as I am certain that we both believe that boasting is a sign of vanity, I will add that my self-estimate is merely an honest but dispassionate conclusion, drawn from a lifetime of encounters with a numberless multitude of incogitant yahoos.”

Hugh grinned. He liked this man. “Let us repair to the Fruit Wench. We have much to talk about.”

“I agree, sir,” replied Swain. “We may talk for a while, until my friends arrive.”

The pair strode along the Strand on the footpath that was separated from the street by lampposts and stone stanchions. A light fog had descended over the city, blurring passing figures and carriages and helping the man and boy focus on the discovery of each other.

“Now, sir, to your name,” said Hugh. “It is not a Christian name.”

Swain laughed. “Indeed, it is not. But the simple explanation for it is that I was born on a ‘glorious’ day. And on London Bridge, in fact, on the Surrey side, to the roar of the tide-drawn rapids below.”

“Explain that, please.”

“My parents, you see, were owned by a Mr. Swain, a pin maker, who lived above his shop on the Bridge. He dubbed my parents Timothy and Dimity. How he came to own them, I never learned. My parents helped him make pins. My mother also took in sewing, and was allowed to earn money that way. My father worked occasionally in a ropeworks near Chamberlain’s Wharf. When I was christened ‘Glorious’ the ritual should have made me a freeman, but that matter has never been resolved. I am not certain of my legal status, whether I am a slave at large or a freeman at liberty, for the courts do not know how to rule in principle on the issue. But I regard myself as an Englishman, and go where I please and do what I do. My only true nemesis is a press gang—and Mohocks, of course.”

“Did those men know you were black?”

“I do not know. I don’t think it mattered to them what my color was. No doubt, like other of their victims, I was a lone man, defenseless, ready
to be ruffled and plucked.”

“Where are your parents now?”

“In heaven, I suppose,” answered Swain. “They and Mr. Swain died of a pox when I was three or four, all within a week. I was subsequently adopted—or possessed—by a fashionable courtesan who had been a regular customer of my mother’s. For her, I acted as pageboy until I was six or seven. She died of the malady usually associated with her trade—blind, covered with sores, and not very fashionable to look at. One of her gentleman friends took me in as his own page, but not for long, for soon I was the page for another courtesan, I believe as part payment for a night of extraordinary licentiousness. She, one night, drank herself into an unconscious state, and never awoke from it. Her parish advertised and sold my status. By this time, I was twelve.”

“What an adventure!” laughed Hugh.

“An adventure? Not quite, my young friend.” Swain sighed. “Another gentleman indentured me to work as his cook and servant. He even paid me a pittance, until he gambled away his means, including an annuity left him by an uncle, for which he had signed a promissory note at the faro table. From Queer Street he went to a sponger, and I with him. He was sentenced in turn as an indenture and sent to the colonies. I was sent to Bridewell to learn another trade. I have had brief careers as a wainwright, a draper’s assistant, and a glove maker’s assistant. Drapery and gloves are still my trades, though I have resorted to duffing, a more lucrative trade.”

“Duffing?” asked Hugh.

“Donning four or five stone of untaxed Dutch tea beneath a greatcoat and selling it to hawkers in this great metropolis. It sells especially well in the plumb neighborhoods.” Swain paused to sigh again. “And I also work at a charity school, run by Quakers, teaching poor children how to read and cipher. It is on Rope Street. That is not so lucrative a pastime, but I do enjoy it and the company of the gentle and pacific Quakers.”

Hugh glanced up at his companion. “Such a life! Yet you have fashioned a pride impervious to pain!”

Swain shook his head. “It was not without effort, sir. And error.”

“I believe you. But it is no mystery to me why you feel kin to Drury Trantham.”

“Do I, sir?”

“How could you not?”

Swain laughed and put a hand on Hugh’s shoulder. “You are a warmly
presumptuous young hellion, sir, and I think we will become fast friends! Ah, here we are!”

They had stopped beneath the sign of the Fruit Wench. A lamppost and links on either side of the sign lit the face of a smiling, comely young woman, her hand balancing a basket of grapes, lemons, oranges, and pippins on her head. “That is Mabel Petty,” said Swain, “nominal owner of this establishment. She once worked as a fruit wench out of Covent Garden. She married the former (and late) owner of this place. Then it was called The Tattered Wig. He lived long enough to sire four children by Mabel, of whom only one, a daughter, survived to lend a hand. Agnes Petty, whom that phiz more closely resembles than it does Mabel, had trod the boards here since the age of five as a serving wench. I do believe the sign painter has emulated the style of Mr. Hogarth’s worthier portraits.”

“I’ve seen some of his work, and I concur,” said Hugh.

The tavern inside was a large room, smoky from innumerable pipes and churchwardens, crowded with tradesmen, watermen, sailors, and their women, raucous from dozens of conversations, and melodic from contesting choruses of “Marlborough Goes to War” and “The Anacreontic Song.” Many freshly commissioned army officers were also present, sitting in groups of bright scarlet coats, boasting of the various ways they meant to deal with the French and Indians in North America.

Swain exchanged nods with a florid-faced woman behind an elevated bar. “Your friends ain’t showed up yet, luv. Find a table and I’ll send Tim over with a tankard. One for your friend, too?”

Swain nodded again. “Thank you, Mabel.” He handed her a couple of coins. They found a small table in a far corner. A boy in an apron followed them shortly with two tankards of ale. As he sipped his drink, Hugh surveyed the lively, noisy scene with wonder.

“First time in a tavern?” asked Swain.

“Yes. It is quite a riot of life, isn’t it?”

“Too much so, at times,” remarked Swain. He gestured to the scabbardless sword Hugh had carried under his arm from Rooker Alley. “I perceive a coat-of-arms there, sir. Do you know whose it is?”

Hugh glanced once at the sword, which he had propped up against the wall. “It is the Bilbury arms, sir. You were assaulted by the Marquis.”

“How do you know that the weapon was not stolen by that Mohock?”

“I did not recognize the coat-of-arms, sir. I recognized the man. I have trafficked with him in the past. He is older, but no wiser.”

Swain took a swig from his tankard, then said with hesitation, “Sir, I am familiar with the name of Kenrick. Are you a relation of the Earl of Danvers? I must confess that your Whitehall address caused me to suspect the possibility.”

“I am his nephew, and the son of the Baron of same.”

“I see,” replied Swain. “Which would make you…” The man sat up stiffly, and pushed his tankard away. “Milord, forgive me if I spoke out of turn, and—”

Hugh rushed to protest. “No, no! I beg you to speak on the same terms, sir! Spare me the delicate addresses! Speak to me as from man to man! Think of me in those terms! I will be offended if you do not! I wish to be regarded in that manner, as a commoner, valued for his virtues, despised for his vices!”

Swain sat back, startled by the outburst. “If that is your wish…sir,” he said, “I will comply with it. However, I will point out that, even though you may eschew your rank, or even renounce it for all time, you will never be a commoner. Your virtues are not common, and your honor and pride, I am certain, are the sibling offspring of uncommon effort. You have my esteem, for all that, sir.”

“And you, mine,” answered Hugh. He raised his tankard. “A toast to ourselves and our friendship, in keeping with the spirit of this place!”

Swain smiled and raised his tankard to touch Hugh’s, and they each drank a draught.

A moment of silence passed. Then Hugh asked, “How did you discover
Hyperborea
?”

Swain chuckled. “When it appeared years ago, foul reviews of it ran in many newspapers here, including the
Evening Post
, the
Daily Auditor,
and the
Register
. No one seemed to like it, but there was a universal, peculiarly dehortative ring in all the commentaries. This was a natural invitation to me to purchase a copy of that book. So disliked a novel deserved a fair reading.” Swain paused. “But before we discuss that work, sir, tell me which play I owe my health to.”

“
Jonathan Wild
,” answered Hugh. He waved a hand in dismissal. “But I do not recommend it. It is a mere patchwork of incidents, loosely sewn together. It would have been dull even had it been well done, which it was not.”

Swain grinned. “I must confess that I have seen it, too, and concur with your estimate of it.”

The two then began an animated discussion of
Hyperborea
, exchanging with excitement descriptions of their favorite characters, scenes, and passages. The glow of a shared, vital concern dulled their awareness of the tavern and its intrusive hubbub. They had reentered the world of Drury Trantham, a starkly clean literary sanctuary uncomplicated by the mundane, the sordid, and the contemptible. At one point, Hugh remarked, “The first time I read it, I became so fond of Trantham, I was angry with Mr. Marsh, the author. How could he send his hero to the bottom like that, and end all possibility of further adventures!”

“That was my foremost reaction, too,” said Swain. “For a while, I could not forgive Mr. Marsh.”

“And then I thought: It doesn’t matter. He died as he had lived. He died for something of his own, just as he had lived for something of his own. There was just enough incident in the novel to make him unforgettable. More would have been superfluous.”

“That was my conclusion, too!” chuckled Swain. The man was almost beside himself with joy. “And your anger with the author in time grew to be love of the work?”

“And the highest esteem for the author,” concurred Hugh. “Yes. Perhaps what he was saying was, ‘Here is my hero; he lives, he conquers, he dies. He is mine to give to you, and mine to take away. As you cherish him, so cherish yourself, and he will never pass from your life…’”

“Oh, what a thought to cling to!” cried Swain. “I wish I had said it!”

But Hugh did not hear Swain’s exclamation. He was lost in the corona of ineluctable truth of his own statement, and struck by the fact that he was its origin. He was unable to distinguish between the truth and the fact. He looked dumbly at Swain across the table, newly aware of facets of himself he had never before had reason to contemplate. He felt weightless.

Glorious Swain knew, at that moment, that he was no longer enjoying the company of a precocious adolescent. He knew that he was looking at the frown of a man in the efflorescent throes of discovering himself. He had personal knowledge of the phenomenon. Until now, he had not witnessed it in anyone else.

Hugh noted that his silent companion was staring at him with an odd intensity, and that he was smiling. At this moment, their friendship was sealed.

“Ti neon ep’astu, Muir?” inquired a voice.

Hugh and Swain glanced up at a figure that loomed above their heads.
It was a tall, scholarly looking man who, however, wore a suit of clothes almost as ostentatious as those sported by the Mohocks. He carried a lacquered rosewood cane with a silver knob. Hugh was intrigued by the stranger’s question, which was ancient Greek for “What’s new in the city?” It also intrigued him that he had clearly addressed Swain, and called him “Muir.” The stranger nodded to Hugh in silent but suspicious greeting.