The Skull and the Nightingale (29 page)

“Here on Richmond Hill,” said Crocker, “we are at peace, far from mobs and Mohocks and impudent boatmen. Why did I quit the country for the town?”

“Because it can be damnably melancholy in winter,” I suggested.

“That is true. But London can be vicious at any season.” He turned to the ladies: “Mr. Fenwick here often wears a sword.”

Kitty affected a shudder: “Have you killed many men?”

“Not one. I have drawn a little blood, and shed a little, too—but I lost more when a knife slipped as I was splitting a walnut. Mr. Pike here could tell you about genuine combat.”

“Could you, Mr. Pike?” cried Jane.

“By your leave, ma’am, I would prefer not to mention such things.”

“Mr. Pike speaks wisely,” said Crocker. “This is an enchanted space, far from all conflict.”

He was so cheerful that he smiled even as he ate. I noticed again the understanding between him and Jane Page: there was a pleasant complicity in the glances they exchanged. Impressed by her discernment, I tried to find out more about her, remarking that I had seen her on stage as Juno, as Ceres, and as Hermione.

“Such are my roles,” she said. “I play the parts of queens and goddesses.”

“This is beyond coincidence,” said I. “You must have innate qualities of majesty and divinity.”

“So I tell her,” cried Crocker. “She draws upon her natural authority.”

Miss Page smiled: “I thank you for your kind words, but you flatter me. I have but three aptitudes: I am tall, my voice is low, and I can be grave. Therefore on stage I cannot smile but must frequently kill myself. This habit fortunately discourages the gentlemen who try to take advantage of members of my profession.”

“I hope,” said Crocker, “that you do not include myself or Mr. Fenwick in that number.”

“By no means—otherwise I would have discouraged my innocent friend Miss Brindley from coming on such an expedition as this.”

“Have no fear,” replied Crocker. “This is an idyll: no one can be disagreeable.”

“Methinks you have too much assurance, sir,” cried Kitty in her rustic character. “Though I am but a country wench, I flatter myself that I can be as disagreeable as any fine lady in the town.”

“Then pray be merciful,” said I. “We are gentlemen of delicacy, easily wounded.”

“As to that, sir, I will form my own judgment.”

Both women, happy and assured, exhibited a kind of brilliance of aspect. Crocker seemed to hint as much when he asked, a little later:

“Tell us now, ladies of the stage: do you not find it a relief to travel far from the theater, free to be yourselves?”

Miss Page and Miss Brindley looked at one another, smiling.

“The truth is,” said Jane, “that I am so accustomed to assuming a character that I scarcely know who I am. But I know if I am happy or not, and today I am happy.”

“Jane speaks for me also,” said Kitty with unexpected seriousness. “A young actress comes to town before she knows who she is, and must then make her living pretending to be other people. How could she not be confused?”

“Your case is the more extreme,” said I, “but we are all obliged to perform.”

“Indeed we are,” said Crocker. “Let me admit that there is a gap between the character I convey through words and the person I feel myself to be. Perhaps Mr. Pike has the best of it: he says but little and shows his disposition through his actions.”

Suddenly the focus of attention, Pike looked up. “Then today,” he said, “I show my disposition by looking after your monkey.”

We smiled at this remark, although uncertain as to its bearing.

“In the boat,” said Kitty, “I was wondering whether a monkey could swim.”

“I have never seen it done,” said Pike.

As though aware we were speaking of him, Trinculo sprang from his branch and ran to and fro, chattering shrilly, before suddenly stopping to regard us with a satirical eye.

“He jeers at us,” said Miss Page, “but I hope he is enjoying our expedition.”

“Of course he is,” said Crocker. “Like ourselves he is released for the day.”

“Unlike ourselves, however,” I objected, “he is fastened to a long chain.”

“But so are we,” said Kitty unexpectedly. “The long chain that will pull us back into dirty London at the end of the afternoon.”

“Trinculo is held by a metal chain,” said I. “What is ours made of ?”

“Habit,” said Crocker. “And sloth and money and timidity. Miss Brindley is in the right: we are all prisoners. But we must make the best of our plight. I will give Trinculo an apple and open another bottle of wine.”

We continued lively and talkative. Only Pike remained quiet, maintaining an alert reserve, like a sergeant dining among officers. Our table was in a shaded corner, but the sun shone so brightly on the scene before us that we could admire it only through half-closed eyes. That fact, combined with the peacefulness of the place, gradually conduced to sleepiness. We were pleasantly subdued into the larger scene. Although I saw that Kitty looked more appealing than I had ever previously known her, I did so with no nagging of physical desire, lost as I was in a collective reverie.

In this shared contentment our conversation insensibly died away. Jane Page murmured idly: “I am very happy—and very drowsy.” It would have taken little to ease all of us, save Pike, into a peaceful doze. We were roused when Kitty said, with sudden recollection: “A year ago this very day I left Helmstone for London.”

“With high expectations?” asked Crocker.

“With very modest and fearful ones.”

“A year ago,” Crocker replied, “I was planning my escape from Somerset.”

“I was in Rome,” said I.

“And I was Dido at Drury Lane,” said Miss Page.

“Yet here we sit,” mused Crocker, “our four lives drawn together into a graceful knot.”

“Where were you, Mr. Pike?” inquired Kitty.

“I cannot recall.” As though feeling his reply had been too curt, he added: “The truth is, ma’am, that I live as I find myself from day to day.”

Crocker nodded approvingly. “Perhaps for that reason, if we were faced with sudden danger, Mr. Pike would be the quickest to respond.”

“I do not doubt it,” said Miss Page, and Pike acknowledged the compliments with one of his infrequent smiles.

After the meal we wandered down the green slope toward the river, the ladies proceeding most carefully, holding parasols aloft and lifting their skirts. Crocker was content to go at the same leisurely pace, since the hill was steep enough to have given him an awkward fall.

Our boat being moored up a little side creek, Pike was sent to procure it, leaving the monkey in our charge. It sat peacefully on Crocker’s shoulder as we stood on the landing stage. The air was a little cooler by now, but the sky was still cloudless, and the Thames and the fields beyond it glowed in the early evening light. All was quiet save for the rippling of the river beneath the planks we stood upon. Miss Page suddenly furled her parasol.

“How artificial we have become,” she said. “Here in the gentlest of country we are wary of the uneven turf under our feet and the hot sun above our head.”

“Not I,” cried Kitty. “Like Phyllis I trip lightly o’er the mead.”

Crocker, still flushed with wine, smiled at her words.

“Miss Brindley,” said he, “you return us to art.”

He threw back his head and sang:

“See how the setting sun resists the night,

Adorning distant hills with golden light.”

On an impulse I seconded him, and the ladies took up the measure, improvising sweet harmonies as we ran through the couplet several times. Our voices rang out across the smooth-flowing Thames. Trinculo remained on Crocker’s shoulder throughout, at ease with the song. As seen from the river, we must have made an odd sight; yet when our impromptu performance faded away, we found ourselves applauded from a distance by the occupants of a passing pleasure boat. We waved to them and they waved a response as they sailed on.

We all fell quiet during the return journey to London, but at first ours was a silence of contented reflection rather than of weariness. Insensibly the mood changed when we drew nearer to Westminster, and the river traffic thickened as the air grew dirtier. By the time we alighted at the steps, we were a little dazed, like people waking from an agreeable dream into intrusive realities. Our party soon divided because, as arranged, I was to take Kitty to the Full Moon, where we had first become lovers.

In the coach I took her hand and she pressed against me, whispering in my ear, still in her droll vein: “Pray take no liberties, sir. I am no such simpleton as to open the premises to an intruder. I could have tasted carnal pleasures long ago if Will Bumpkin had had his way, but I valued my virtue above such rustic fingerings.”

Later, in our bedroom, I gave her the necklace I had purchased in Knott’s Market. It seemed that she was moved, because she gazed at it for some little time saying nothing. When she did speak, it was again in character: “Sure, sir, you would not take advantage of a poor country girl? A full purse, a frilled shirt, and a lusty member are all very fine, but what if the man has no heart? I scarce know what to think. But I must like you, sir, for you do buy me a beautiful necklace, and make me laugh and squeak.”

She embraced me and hid her face in my shoulder. When I made to kiss her I found that there were tears on her cheeks.

“Why should you weep?” I asked her.

“I cannot say. I will not say.”

She stepped away from me, smiling now, and began to remove her clothes, all the time looking me in the eyes. When she was completely undressed she put on the necklace for the first time. I raised a candle to look at her, and the red jewels blinked warmly above the pure white skin of her breast.

“I have not seen you more beautiful,” I said.

“We have passed a beautiful day. I will never know a better.”

For want of a reply I took her into my arms, suddenly moved by the thought that she was right: she could look for no more than this. Mr. Gilbert would no doubt have seen such tears and blushes as incidental expressions of the breeding impulse, but I could not yet think as he did. I kissed my actress-lover with something more than animal lust, startled to find a minor player in my private drama presuming to take a major part.

Chapter 16

T
he following day I retreated to Cathcart Street and sat brooding with a clouded mind. Having found the previous twenty-four hours sweetly pleasurable, I struggled to convince myself, as I had to, that they amounted to an interlude only, a distraction from my serious pursuits. I felt a new tenderness for Kitty—she had formed an attachment to me while knowing that there was no future for it: if I had had promises to make, I would have made them by now. For my part I recognized that, given her growing fame, what I was able to offer her was sure to be outbid: I would have to endure the blow to my pride and pleasure of seeing her pass into the protection of another. I could not foresee this loss without a pang.

That disturbing thought prompted another. Although my love for Sarah had seemed to me to be of a different order from my affectionate lust for Kitty, would it not bring me to an identical conclusion? Beyond the physical seduction what could ensue? Would Sarah consent to be my occasional mistress? Might she puzzle her husband by producing a brown-eyed son? The possibilities were too squalid to be pursued. If I was blunt with myself, it seemed that all I could offer was fornication followed by misery.

I concluded that I could not afford to be blunt with myself. My future was at stake. Whatever my misgivings, I was obliged to maintain my pursuit of Sarah and feed the story to my godfather. He would already be looking to receive a further chapter.

A day later I settled to the task of composing one. I wrote a humdrum account of my visit to Margaret Street before proceeding to an attempted justification:

You may feel that there is little here to suggest that progress has been made. But as a young lady fresh to London and its ways, and not yet comfortably established in her new station in life, Mrs. Ogden will hardly yield to an abrupt avowal or assault—least of all in her own house. Your letter from Lord Downs opened the door for me, but it afforded a single opportunity that I could not afford to put at risk. Accordingly I seasoned our conversation with only the faintest trace of warmer recollections and intimations.

As I have told you, I first knew the lady in York, when we were children. By referring to shared memories from those days, I engaged her interest, made her smile, and, I hope, began to reinstate myself as a friend and confidant.

But I was also able to imply, through glancing allusions, that I had since traveled widely and made the acquaintance of certain distinguished individuals. Thanks to your generosity, this is indeed the case. Given that her present way of life would seem to provide wealth without diversion and comfort without society, I hope she will come to associate me with possibilities of greater excitement.

Such encroachments may seem a long way from carnal temptation, but I am persuaded that they may offer the most promising route to opportunities of that kind. That hope gains strength from two considerations. The Sarah I knew was of warm disposition: impulsive and emotional, ready of apprehension, and quick to laugh or blush. I have seen her show strong feelings on occasion, whether of enthusiasm, joy, or justified indignation. I suspect that she is, or could become, a creature of Passion.

My second consideration is that her husband seems hardly a man to evoke or respond to ardent feeling. I suspect that he has done no more than awaken his wife to the possibility of pleasures that he himself cannot provide—if not from physical incapacity, then from a deficiency of grace. What woman of delicacy could endure to have this porky nullity pawing at her body? I hope to turn to account an accumulating, but as yet, perhaps, unacknowledged disgust.

My allusions to seeds, hints, or glimpses will not appear strange to you. They derive from your own claim that we are undertaking an experiment. Indeed we are—an experiment of an elusive kind, involving matters physical, emotional, and intellectual, and the interplay between them. We will understand what happens, perhaps, only in retrospect.