Hugh Kenrick (32 page)

“But the French philosophes have not even gone that far,” protested Mathius. “Why should we toast such a…dangerous idea?”

“What?” laughed Claude. “And let the French have all the fun?”

“For once, an Englishman has had an original idea!” seconded Steven. “Let the French be on the receiving end this time!”

“I am in correspondence with Helvétius,” said Tobius, “and I shall write him about this on the morrow.”

“And I with Dumarsais,” said Abraham. “I shall add a postscript to a letter to him I have finished.”

“You must admit,” said Muir to Mathius, “that the idea proffered by Miltiades is in the spirit of our Society.”

“Yes,” sighed Mathius. “It is.”

“Well, then!” exclaimed Abraham. “Here’s to Miltiades!”

The other men also rose and finished their glasses of port.

“Your address was a bracing gust of cold air,” said Glorious Swain to Hugh after the meeting had adjourned and the others had dispersed. They sat together in the front of the tavern over glasses of port. “I cannot remember last being so excited by an idea, and I have never seen the others so roused.”

“Mathius opposes me,” said Hugh. “The tone of his questioning was not one of dispassionate inquiry.”

“True. I do not know what his profession is, but any subject beyond the realm of poetry and prose is difficult for him to grasp.”

“He was not merely shocked by my address,” observed Hugh. “He was hostile to it.”

Swain puffed thoughtfully on his pipe, then smiled. “I have heard the others say of Mathius that his mind resembles a fragrant flower garden, nurtured by a rich but thin soil, in which an oak could never take root.”

At the next meeting, it was Mathius’s turn to present an idea. He argued, with more emotion than reason, that “man and nature are inseparably intertwined, and that man’s salvation and happiness depend on his eschewing the refinements and pretensions of society, on leading a simpler and blameless life, and on not offending nature. Man would then be in harmony with nature, which would spare him the tribulations of catastrophe, pestilence, and sorrow. Nature is not to be commanded,” he ended. “It is to be obeyed.”

Mathius bowed, sat down, and waited for a response. After a long silence, Elspeth blurted out, “Gadso, sir! That sentiment would clinch our
own demise!”

“I’m rather fond of society’s refinements,” remarked Claude.

“What do you mean by its ‘pretensions,’ sir?” asked Muir.

“In a word,” replied Mathius, “that we can improve on nature. Show me the ship that can’t sink, or the house that won’t fall, or the clock that won’t stop. All that we do, all that we create, is as mortal as we are, and will be conquered by nature.”

Tobius shook his head. “We command nature by obeying her laws,” he said. “And when we discover the rules of her laws, we arrest her progress.”

Hugh remarked, “We do not so much ‘obey’ nature’s laws, sirs, but observe them.”

“It is a unique thesis you present, sir,” said Abraham, raising his hands to indicate the city beyond the tavern, “here, in the middle of London, as unnatural a phenomenon as one could imagine, one which gives life to so many. London has checkmated nature.”

“Look at Rome,” insisted Mathius. “And Greece! Both, in the end, humbled and consumed by nature!”

Elspeth shook his head. “The facts contradict you, sir. They point to those societies having done themselves in, not nature, which merely dispatched her weeds and vines to grow over abandoned temples and market squares.”

“Liberty was their breakwater against nature, sir,” added Steven. “And when they allowed their liberties to crumble away, so went their societies.”

“Admit it, Mathius!” laughed Claude. “You had some wrong beef before you composed your thesis, and it has compelled you to bolk such shameless flummery!”

The members laughed. Mathius retorted, “That was unkind of you, Claude. I have devoted at least as much thought to my thesis as you have to your morning tea!”

“Nevertheless,” replied Claude, “we forgive you.”

Again the members laughed, but stopped when Hugh sat forward to speak. Everyone turned to him. “You pose an inanalogous thesis, sir,” he said. “Nature is never so cruel and aggressive as are men. Nature has no intention, no purpose, no goal, no…state of grace to grant, nor one for men to perceive and betray. It does not plot, connive, or single any man out for reward or punishment. It has no soul, no consciousness, and so cannot contrive harmony. It is simply…there. It is merely mechanical, and not sentient.”

Mathius sniffed. “You are indeed not a deist,” he said.

“I never claimed to be one,” replied Hugh. “On the other hand, man acts. Nature is governed by her own laws. These laws are impersonal, and if we master them, they can help us live and act. It is an error to personify nature beyond the requirements of humor. I once contemplated penning a moral satire which employed sheep, but abandoned the idea, because it seemed to be a cheap and cowardly way of saying what I wanted to say.”

The members waited for Mathius to reply. The man wanted to, but could not. His face registered various distortions of speechlessness, and at last settled on an expression of bitterness. This was the only instance in the Society’s annals when a member’s idea had been so thoroughly and unanimously opposed. Mathius fell back in his chair and threw up his hands in concession.

The Society’s meetings presented Hugh with the opportunity to speak as he could not even at Dr. Comyn’s School for Gentlemen. It was a far more satisfying venue than was the school, for now he had an audience of seasoned, mature minds. At the meetings he could dare to give expression to his most deeply felt and hard-thought ideas. He could hear the other members propose provocative ideas he encountered nowhere else. Glorious Swain—Muir—delivered a provocative address on the notion of conscience, a notion Hugh had never seen defined or challenged anywhere in his wide reading, even though he and Swain had once discussed it.

“The trouble with the notion of conscience,” said Muir, “is two-fold. I mention only the first, and dwell on the second. The first trouble is its connection with the notion of original sin. Here conscience is viewed as a kind of molasses of guilt applied to all who were, all who are, and all who will be. This connection I hope to address at another time. It is the secular notion of conscience that has troubled me and whetted my curiosity. It suggests a moral knowledge independent of one’s actual character and actions and knowledge. The Bard made an observation on this very phenomenon: ‘Policy sits above conscience.’ Now, I do not think a conscience is a legitimate measure of one’s moral character.” He ended his address with, “A truly moral man has no need of a conscience. All his actions are moral, and are one with his character. His actions are not apart from his conscious morality, and his morality is not an extraneous body of knowledge, sitting in the back of his head, waiting to rebuke him or pounce upon him were he to commit a wrong action. This man’s self is in accord with his virtue. His day-to-day policy and his life-long policy are complementary, in perfect,
seamless, indistinguishable harmony…”

Mathius asked, “But you do not deny the existence of conscience?”

“No,” answered Muir. “The sad truth is that most men are plagued by one. Conscience makes criminals of men, causing them only to regret their actions, without telling them anything useful, and whether or not they ever commit a crime. How else to explain the numerous, sincere gallows confessions at Tyburn Tree? No, I merely say that conscience is impractical. A truly moral man could not regret or rue his actions.” Muir paused in thought. “Something both practical and moral is wanted, and remains to be discovered.”

“Presuming that morality is spiritual,” broached Claude, “how could it be practical?”

“If it is practical, then how could it be spiritual?” asked Tobius.

Muir said, “In the course of preparing my address to you, I had glimpses of the possibility of such a union. Breathless as these were, I was unable to magnify them for closer scrutiny, nor put them on paper. I no sooner imagined them, then they slipped away back into the fog of my confusion.”

The members were quiet. It was a disturbing idea that Muir had introduced to them, so disturbing that it caused each of them to think of himself, of his profession, of how he had conducted his own life up to this moment. And in this unsettling but edifying moment, each saw a glimpse of what Muir had glimpsed, and understood the enormity of the obstacles to an answer each sensed was ecstatically right, but knew not why.

At length, Tobius said, “You have revealed to us a new Olympus, Muir. It is distant, and its peak is shrouded in clouds. How long would it take us to reach it, and how should we scale it?”

Muir looked around at his companions, and smiled. “You are my closest friends, and one of you will solve the problem some day, and tell me the answers.” His glance swept the gathering, and stopped on Hugh’s attentive face, but did not linger on it.

*  *  *

“You are capable of fresh breezes yourself,” said Hugh later. “I cannot recall a meeting when so few questions were asked of the speaker.”

They were strolling together along the lamp-lit Strand. Music, singing, and laughter came from the numerous taverns and coffeehouses they
passed on this spring night. Watchmen cried out the hour—eleven of the clock—and coaches and gentlemen on horseback paraded up and down the street.

Glorious Swain chuckled. “Thank you, sir.” He paused. “I did not wish to call attention to it at the meeting, but I believe that you will be the one to give me and the others maps to Olympus.” Hugh turned to face him, but Swain held up a hand. “No protestations, sir! You have two advantages over the rest of us: your youth, and my certainty that you alone among us are not burdened with a conscience, and never will be.”

Hugh said, “Thank you, Mr. Swain.” But then he shook his head. “What you say is true, but it is not my ambition to become a philosopher.”

“Perhaps not. But you will become one. I believe it is the only matter in your life in which you have never had a choice.”

Again Hugh shook his head. “I choose to think, sir. There is nothing mechanical or predestined in that.”

“That is why I say what I say.”

They walked in silence until they came to Charing Cross, the Y-shaped junction of the Strand, Whitehall, and Cockspur Street. In its center, facing Whitehall beyond, was the bronze equestrian statue of Charles I by Hubert le Sueur, poised atop a tall, narrow, rococo-ornamented stone pedestal enclosed by a circular iron railing. The steed seemed to have more majesty than its rider, for while Charles’s left hand suggested tightly held reins, his right hand was raised as though he were holding a sword, or more likely a baton of state. But, whether sword or baton, that hand was significantly empty. The statue had been saved and hidden by Royalists during the Commonwealth, and restored to Charing Cross after the fall of its successor, the Protectorate. A symbol of the country’s more recent history, it would survive into the next century. Charles was beheaded in 1649 by ancestors of the Whigs and Tories, and when kings were welcomed back, they came without the baton of absolute power. That had been appropriated by Parliament.

Around powerless Charles jostled the nightlife of London: coaches, sedan chairs, carriages, strollers, and parties of revelers. On this crossroads were taverns and coffeehouses that exhibited freaks and “oddities” such as centaurs and mermaids for a price of a few shillings; respectable establishments hosted by well-bred ladies and gracious gentlemen, such as the Red Lion Tavern and the British Coffee House; night-cellars, or brothels, and private gaming clubs of all kinds; several coach inns for travelers from
beyond London; linen drapers’ and lacemen’s shops; silversmiths, saddlers, victuallers, hosiers, and haberdashers. Pickpockets and confidence tricksters preyed on country folk and foreigners. Beggars plied their trade, prostitutes accosted passing men, and ladies of rank and their escorts slummed behind domino masks.

In front of the statue was an elevated pillory, where convicted felons were put on display for public view and public punishment. Besides being pelted with stones and dung by the crowds, prisoners were often subjected to the branding of their hands for theft—depending on the assessed value of the stolen objects—or to the removal of their ears or the slitting of their noses, if they had been found guilty of forgery. Other prisoners, men and women, charged with crimes such as perjury and extortion, would be chained to the tail of a cart and publicly whipped on their bare backs as they were led past or around the statue. No criminals were ever hanged at Charing Cross; but, like Tyburn Tree, and later Newgate, the place became the venue for a circus-like exhibition of what passed for justice.

There were other pillories in the city—in Southwark, at the Haymarket, outside of Westminster Hall, or wherever great throngs of Londoners passed through in the course of their business—but none was so appropriate as Charing Cross. Here many terrible crimes were committed, and here many awful punishments were carried out, presided over by a great criminal. No one could say whether the statue honored Charles, or served as an example of what lay in store for living a life of crime. The solemn, dignified face of Charles gazed above and beyond this “full tide of human existence”—as Samuel Johnson years later was to characterize Charing Cross—his lofty countenance insensible to the ironies of his own effigy and of the justice exacted beneath the hooves of his steed.

As they threaded their way through the crowds and dodged carriages and sedan chairs, Swain glanced up at the statue, which was silhouetted against the night sky and barely visible in the light of the street lamps, flambeaux, and torches of the linkboys. He asked, without immediately knowing the reason, “Can you ever forgive your uncle?”

Hugh’s father had asked him the same question. Hugh repeated his answer. “No. There can be no reprieve for his crime. He assaulted my mind.”

Hugh had since made inquiries, but could not locate Hulton or even learn which army regiment he had enlisted in. He continued to scour bookshops and second-hand stalls throughout the city, but could not find
another copy of
Hyperborea
. Swain had offered to loan him his copy, but Hugh cordially refused. “I could not guarantee its safety.” He had reached an agreement with Nathan Rickerby—to whom he had revealed his true identity, but made take an oath of secrecy—and could rent the room on Cutter Lane for a year. With his father and Benjamin Worley he had attended the opening for business of a new bank, Formby, Swire and Pursehouse; his father surprised him and made an interest-bearing deposit in his name. “Why?” he had asked. Garnet Kenrick merely answered: “Every man of good character should have an account.” But his father’s eyes had said: “For having had the courage to call my brother a liar.” Hugh continued to excel in his studies at Dr. Comyn’s School; he had reached a point where he brought more to his studies than his instructors gave him.