Hugh Kenrick (25 page)

One of the men rose and took a chair from by the fireplace and placed it at the table. The chairman gestured to Hugh. “Sit, sir, if you please.”

Hugh obeyed, removing his hat and adjusting his sword.

The chairman said, “It is necessary to assign you a name that will both conform to the Greek motif of our society, and recognize the valor which brought you to your sponsor’s and our attention. Muir, I believe, has chosen a very appropriate alias.”

Swain rose and faced Hugh. “Miltiades,” he said solemnly, “after the commander who led the Athenians to victory at Marathon over the Persians.”

“Will you accept Miltiades as your sole name in our company?” asked the chairman.

“In all modesty, yes, I accept it,” said Hugh.

“Spoken like a true Pippin!” laughed one of the men.

Another retrieved something from a vacant chair across the room. It was a wreath of apple leaves, preserved in thin wax, though many of the
leaves were brown and brittle with age. The man fitted it over Hugh’s head. “The corona of a scholar!” he said. “Now, for a pippin!”

The chairman handed Hugh the rosewood cane. “This is our Bible, sir,” he said. “Swear on it that you will tell no lies, practice no deceit, and never let slacken your lust for Eve and her wares!”

“I swear,” replied Hugh, amused by the men’s behavior.

“It’s the fruit of knowledge, lad,” said another member. “Ignorance cannot be bliss, for there is nothing in it to digest. Knowledge sates the appetites of noble minds!”

“The crown,” said the chairman, “was last worn by your sponsor, some years ago. A former member, who got into a chance conversation with him, had decided to remove to the colonies. But before he left, he sponsored Muir in much the same manner as Muir has sponsored you.”

Another member abruptly rose, went to the entrance to the room, and called out, “Agnes, we need you to seal a covenant! And where’s that port?” He returned and grinned at Hugh. “Eve must be the last component of your tripos, Miltiades.”

One of the men noticed an odd look on Hugh’s face. “Sir: do you detect a strain of blasphemy in our rhetoric?”

“It would be called that in regular society, sir,” answered Hugh.

“Ah! But we are not regular society, sir,” said another member. “We are worse than the Hellfire Club and the Medmendham Club put together! Members of those societies pursue mere sensual objects and ends—though we are not above that ourselves, on occasion. No! We pursue that which allows such men to waste their time and money, and others to accomplish great things and the wonders of the ages! What do we advocate?” The man pounded a fist on the table. “La raison humaine! That is what we esteem here in Angleterre! We recognize no other Eves!”

Agnes, Mabel Petty’s daughter, rushed through the entrance with a tray of bottles. “Here’s your port, sirs, and what else did you be wantin’?” She was a pretty girl of eighteen, with black hair under a mobcap, and frank gray eyes. She put the bottles on the table and laid the tray aside.

“We would be wantin’ a wanton, deary,” said the man who had challenged Hugh, “to buss yonder youth and so complete our ceremony.”

“Hey! Who’s sayin’ I’m a wanton?” protested Agnes, her chin thrust out and hands on her hips. “I don’t go round peckin’ every man who begs for the favor, and I’ll smack the one what thinks I does!” She held out a palm and snapped her fingers. “Pay for the port, and I’ll be on my way! Ten
and five, please!”

The chairman approached her and dropped some coins into her palm, but then clasped her wrist so that she could not leave. “Not even for a crown, my dear?”

Agnes’s brow furled in thought. “you’re askin’ for a smackin’, sir,” she replied in warning. “I means it! And my mum’ll give you all the royal boot, to boot!”

“I am not the man who requires your favor, my dear.” The chairman gestured toward Hugh. “There is your Adonis, waiting the lips that will admit him past the gates of our society.” He turned to Hugh. “Have you a crown, Miltiades?”

Glorious Swain chuckled. “I have the dues,” he said, taking out his purse and giving Hugh a coin.

Agnes Petty hesitated. None of the men could tell whether it was the crown that made her reconsider the request, or Hugh himself, whom she noticed for the first time. She looked suspiciously at the chairman. “you’re not askin’ for nothin’ but a sisterly kind of peck, are you? Won’t be no harm in that, I’d say.”

“Just sit on his lap for a moment, and deliver your blessing, my dear. That’s all we ask.”

Agnes grimaced, yanked her hand from the chairman’s grasp, and dropped the coins into her apron pocket. She briskly walked around the table and plopped down on Hugh’s lap, snatched the crown from his fingers, then rested her arms on his shoulders. “A young one, for once!” she exclaimed. “What an armful you’re goin’ to be for some lucky girl!” She paused to scowl and ask, “What d’you want to hang about with these gouty codgers for, anyway?”

“For their wisdom, Miss Petty,” replied Hugh tentatively, for he was uncomfortable with this situation. The only other women who had been this close to him were his mother, his governess, Bridget, and Reverdy Brune, but not in this manner, nor for this reason.

“Well, all right, then,” sighed Agnes. “Here’s some wisdom you won’t ever get from them and won’t be forgettin’ from me!” She kissed him roundly on the lips. She seemed to linger against her will, then disengaged and jumped up from Hugh’s lap. There was a blush on her face. Without another word, she handed him back the crown, then swept past the men, picked up her tray, and was gone.

All the men regarded Hugh with amusement. Hugh, a little disconcerted
by the experience, but not displeased, removed the wreath from his head and laid it on the table. He handed back Swain’s crown.

“I do believe,” remarked Swain, “that you sparked a flame in that girl, Miltiades.”

“Well,” said the chairman, coming back to the table, “it is time we introduced ourselves. The scepter, please, Miltiades.”

Hugh handed the walking stick to the chairman.

All the men rose from the table. The chairman laid the cane on it in front of him. “But, first a preface concerning our purpose and spirit. Collectively, if you please, gentlemen. As Muir has no doubt informed you, we comprise a Pleiad of wisdom. We represent the seven twin brothers of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione.”

“We, too, are hunted by Orion,” said another member.

“We are the second generation of this Society, which was founded in the last year of the reign of Queen Anne.”

“We are not Whigs.”

“Nor are we Tories.”

“We are outlaws of the intellect!”

“Unlicensed, unregulated, and unguilded!”

“We commune freely and daily with Clio.”

“We are the acolytes of Calliope!”

“And the slaves of liberty! Adamites all! We sing Lady Liberty’s virtues! She is Eve in disguise! She hands us the forbidden fruit of knowledge, from which we take manly bites!”

“We are mancipated to her apron strings, and are happy men!”

“Thus the name of our club, sir: The Society of the Pippin!”

“Among ourselves, we speak without fear of censure or reprimand by the watchmen of church and state. This is more liberty than that enjoyed by anyone in Parliament!”

“And when we die, Hell will not be the terminus of our departing souls.”

“We are destined for Helicon, home of Apollo and the Muses!”

The chairman bowed to Hugh. “I am Tobius, twin brother of Taygete, a daughter of Atlas.” Outside the Fruit Wench, he was actually Robert Meservey, physician, occasional lecturer at the College of Surgeons, essayist, and contributor to many of the city’s numerous periodicals.

“I am Abraham, twin brother of Alcyone,” said Jacob Mendoza, the second oldest member. He was a watchmaker and clocksmith by trade, and
a Jew. Under still another name he was the author of many irreligious, satirical letters he sent to the city’s newspapers; some of these letters were actually printed. He was known to the Society as a secular adherent of Sadoc, who in the second century before Christ founded a sect of skeptics, which maintained that the soul was mortal, that heaven and hell did not exist, nor angels or spirits, and denied the resurrection of the soul from the dead. “Abraham” did not object to the Greek mythology of the Society; it was much pleasanter lore than any he had ever encountered. He cherished it, his own conviction notwithstanding, because it was deliciously pagan. He attended neither synagogue nor church.

“I am Mathius, twin brother of Merope,” said William Horlick, a part-time Grub Street hack who produced fables, gossip, and advice for chapbooks and almanacs, and part-time clerk for a wine merchant. He had written several novels in the style of Samuel Richardson, and a volume of poetry and musings in the style of Samuel Johnson, but had not been successful in persuading a patron or a publisher to promote his work.

“I am Claude, twin brother of Celæno,” announced Daniel Sweeney in a muted brogue. He was a cabinetmaker, a locksmith, and an Irishman. He was an Anglican by default, and an indifferent one at that, for he owned a prospering business in a parish where church attendance was closely scrutinized by pastor, vestryman, and neighbor. He hailed from Dublin, where he once published a series of violently anti-Catholic tracts, which earned him death threats. He disowned most of the Irish who lived in the Wapping and St. Giles sections of London; he called them “beggarly beasts, who would make a foul pigsty of heaven, if they could suborn St. Peter to allow them into it.” He disowned Ireland. “It will never become a fit, cosmopolitan place to live, until it abandons Popery and the English abandon it.”

“I am Elspeth, twin brother of Electra,” said Beverly Brashears, a bookseller and, in his own circles, a noted antiquary and advisor to those rich enough to collect and maintain private libraries. His obsession was to someday be able to publish the journals of Parliament—both houses—and to that end constantly instigated petitions for a bill that would allow the public reporting of sessions and debates. He bribed his borough’s member in the Commons to submit his petitions, even though they were repeatedly rejected without a reading. He continued to author, under another name, a series of pamphlets calling for the accountability of representatives, of Parliament, and even of the king for their actions and policies. “The king his
majesty can do as much wrong as his minister, a member of the Commons, or a scheming link boy.”

“I am Muir, twin brother of Maia,” said Glorious Swain.

“I am Steven, twin brother of Sterope,” said Peter Brompton, a musician and music tutor to the children of many of the city’s most prosperous families. He was adept on many wind and string instruments, and played often with orchestras at Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens.

The men sat again, and poured themselves glasses of port from the new bottles. A glass was offered to Hugh. The members toasted him. He toasted them, and marveled at the difference between this gathering and his uncle’s supper. There was no coyness here, no pretence, no undercurrent of deceit, no evidence of ulterior purpose. These men were open, honest, and frank. Still, the custom of the names bothered him.

“Tobius” saw the question in Hugh’s expression, and asked, “What confuses you, Miltiades?”

Hugh replied, “ Muir explained the reason why you employ aliases—“I am the third member to bear the name Steven,” said Peter Brompton. “Muir there is the fourth member to carry his. It’s only Tobius who is a mere second owner of his name. He is very ancient, you see. He knew some of the original members, when he was your years.”

Hugh smiled in answer to the distraction, then continued, “I still don’t see the necessity for it.”

Tobius leaned closer to him, and said in a near-whisper, “Intra muros, sir.” He gestured with a circling finger at the walls of the room. “Then, inter nos. I cannot overly stress this caution. The cider of nomic wisdom is not the staple of our mental compotations. It is not imbibed here.”

“What we discuss here,” said Swain, who sat next to Hugh, “could be judged seditious or treasonable—”

“Or even heretical,” interjected Abraham, “if the subject turns to religion.”

“—and that could lead to arrest and certain conviction.”

“Our Pippin names,” said Claude, “protect us from a Judas.”

“Thirty pieces of silver can purchase a man a full life in London,” remarked Elspeth. “At least for a year.”

“It’s an awful temptation,” added Mathius.

“Dr. Johnson may say what he wishes,” said Tobius, “and the king’s men may dismiss his logodaedaly as despient. And should he ever offend some ensconced half-wit, he has many friends who would rush to pay his
bail. We, however, are not so famous, nor so notorious. We are mere clerisy. We have not earned universal precony. We would be punished, bankrupted, hanged, or transported, and no one would wink or mourn.”

“Just as it is ironic that knowledge of anatomy and progress in medicine should depend almost wholly on the blossoming of Tyburn Tree and the depredations of grave-robbers,” said Claude, “so it is that advances in moral theories, and ethics, and politics are born in nocturnal covens such as ours.”

“Dr. Johnson once ventured in here one bilious evening,” recalled Mathius, “seeking refuge from the rain. He heard us talking and sampled our company.”

“Half an hour later, though,” said Swain, “he rose, begged our pardon, and fled!”

“The diet of discourse here was apparently indigestible!” laughed Tobius.

“The food for thought too exotic to his palate.”

“He is a hard-working man, and I should have been proud to be one of his
Dictionary
clerks, but he is a devoted Tory.”

Hugh thought for a moment, then said, “What you are saying, then, is this: If I told a magistrate, ‘The king is not a god, and Parliament is not a convocation of infallible Olympians,’ he could have me seized and punished?”

“As a modern Anaxagoras, sir,” answered Abraham. “And, if you had communicated that notion to the populace, you would be hanged once for treason, once for sedition, and once for heresy.”

“Nevertheless,” said Hugh, “I think it most ironic—even cruel—that, while you are all dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, you fear to know each other.”