The Skull and the Nightingale (17 page)

Ogden and I exchanged the briefest of bows and he turned away, plainly glad to return to his labors. I walked on with my host, making conversation to hide any trace of discomfiture. Asked about my acquaintanceship with Mrs. Ogden, I put the matter to rest lightly enough. Crocker said that he had met someone else who knew of me: the actress Jane Page. “A handsome woman and a talented performer,” said I. I could not tell from his manner whether he had heard of my doings with Kitty Brindley. Soon afterward I took my leave.

As I made my way down Wyvern Street I was surprised to see, forty yards ahead of me, the broad back and square shoulders of Ogden. I could have caught up with him as he stumped along, but preferred to follow and keep him in view. He turned the corner into Margaret Street and entered a fine new mansion. The man who owned this house and could buy another, along the road, for Mrs. Kinsey must be rich indeed.

Walking on, I admitted to myself that I had been shaken by my exchange with Ogden. It would have better become the fellow to remain a stranger to me until I had duly plowed his wife. Nor had I been pleased to learn that there was more to him than I had supposed: Crocker had spoken of him, and to him, not as a tradesman but as a professional adviser.

Could I still think to cuckold such a man—perhaps now to be seen as the friend of a friend? Indeed I could. I was resentful that Ogden had acknowledged me so casually, that an encounter which had discomposed me had made so little impression on him—and this even though he knew that I had been a friend of his wife. It was, of course, convenient for my purposes that he should be devoid of suspicion, but still his self-absorption rankled.

I knew the reaction was absurd. What would I have had him say? Perhaps, ideally:

“Mr. Fenwick, your reputation precedes you. For Sarah’s satisfaction and your own I will put her at your disposal at any time you wish.”

Yet even that would not have sufficed. I wanted to plague this impassive lump of a man with agonies of jealousy. Was I unreasonable? Of course, and grotesquely so. But love is unreasonable, lust more so. It could not be that this Ogden was equipped to gratify Sarah’s body or her mind. If he was indeed something a little more than a merchant, his interest in the disposition of light, or whatnot, seemed to have done nothing to brighten his manner or his conversation. He was irredeemably a dullard, a trader, a clod.

My resentment had hardly subsided when it was accidentally reawakened. That very evening Matt Cullen burst in to see me, brimming with good spirits.

“I was walking in the Park this morning,” said he, “and was rewarded with an unexpected sight: Mrs. Ogden, unmistakably Sarah Ogden, walking with her aunt. She did not see me, but I observed her boldly, from behind a tree. Dick, you were right. Since last I saw her she has become a beauty. Having done the carnal deed, she is a woman transformed.”

“So I told you,” I replied peevishly. “And today I met her pasty-faced proprietor.”

I described what had passed, trying, but failing, to restrain my vexation. Matt regarded me with a satirical eye.

“Why so peevish, Master Fenwick? Sweet Kitty Brindley is at your disposal. As for Mrs. Ogden, you have resolved to enjoy her in due course. Restrain your animosity and set about the task.”

“You are right,” I conceded. “But the animosity becomes an incentive in itself.”

“As I have told you,” said Matt, “this is just the story to beguile Mr. Gilbert.”

T
he following morning, over a dish of tea, I reviewed the case once more and gave way to an abrupt blaze of fury. I was quite literally shaken: the teacup was trembling in my hand.
Why so peevish, Master Fenwick?
Cullen’s question had been a reasonable one. My rage was absurdly misplaced and disproportionate. If Sarah had married a dolt, then surely so much the more hopeful for my purpose? I could not justify, or even make sense of, my anger. All I could muster was a confused sense that Sarah represented my past—or all of it that I cared to remember—and that she and it had been commandeered by a vulgarian.

Here was a strange tale—strange even to myself. After all I would take Matt’s advice and relate it to Gilbert as it unfolded. The fact of beginning to tell it would coerce me into enacting it.

My dear Godfather,

Two nights ago I again met Horn and Latimer at the Black Lion. Latimer had news for us: he is to become personal secretary to Lord Ashton, a statesman of rising power. Horn and I were derisive, knowing that this advancement owes everything to family connection.

“Tell us,” said Horn. “What do you take to be the personal qualities that have won the favor of his lordship?”

“Where is one to begin?” replied Latimer. “Courtesy, composure, urbanity . . .”

“My friend,” cried Horn, “you are talking to men who have eaten with you, drunk with you, and vomited with you. We know these seeming virtues for what they are—namely a pitiful lack of animal spirits, scarcely to be distinguished from torpor.”

“What Horn and I must consider,” said I, “is whether we should prevent the appointment by exposing your shortcomings to the world.”

“The case is so strong,” said Horn, “that, speaking personally, I can think of but one consideration that might silence me. You could find an old friend the well-paid sinecure he so richly deserves.”

We were joined by Talbot and others, who drank toasts to Latimer’s good fortune. The conversation turned from luck to chance, perhaps because we had several members of White’s among our number. There was comparison between wagers involving judgment or daring and those based upon chance alone, as with a race between two raindrops down a window, or the number of grains of wheat that can be held in a spoon.

A few more bottles sufficing to lure us from theory to practice, there was a wager between Scales and Winterton to establish how many empty glasses might be balanced one upon another. The man whose attempt brought the tower down would lose his money. Given their elevated condition, the contestants performed well: the fragile column rose steadily. When it began to sway they were insistent that no spectator should affect the outcome by motion, breath, or even sound. You must picture a dozen intoxicated youths, sweating under their wigs yet frozen into an agony of immobility as the last three glasses were added to the tottering pillar. There was a mighty cheer when it swayed, broke, and crashed to the floor.

After paying his debt, Winterton, the loser, looked for a broom with which to sweep up the broken glass. As chance would have it, he found in the cupboard a coil of rope, which he brought back as a possible source of further mischief. Our room being on the second floor, someone wagered Horn a guinea that he would not slither down the rope to the street below. Horn, who can climb like a monkey, not only did so but immediately climbed back up again, a feat then emulated, if less nimbly, by two or three others, amid roars of encouragement.

There the matter might have ended had not some rash fool suggested a further challenge—that the rope should be suspended between our window and the corresponding one in the building opposite, so that those sufficiently venturesome might use it to cross the road. There followed a period of negotiation and maneuver. Those living opposite were bribed into assent to our plan, but our fuddled brains had difficulty in organizing the conveyance of the rope’s end to the appropriate window. When the connection was pronounced secure, the question arose as to who should first make use of it. On an impulse I volunteered, and swung myself across hand over hand.

Horn readily completed the same crossing. Eckersley embarked more nervously, wrapping his legs round the rope, struggling to move himself along, and once or twice yelping in fright. However, he, too, reached the far window, where friendly hands hauled him in. Then Winterton, by now quite drunk, gave a great yell, as though to lift his spirits, and swung himself out, clinging with hands alone, as I had done. Our cheers faded when we saw that he was floundering. He lurched halfway across, kicking out wildly, but then lost his hold and fell, with a cry, scattering the crowd that had gathered to watch.

We clattered down in some disarray. Poor Winterton, betrayed by chance for the second time that night, lay sprawled on the cobbles, cursing and whimpering, surrounded by curious onlookers, some diverted by the spectacle of this fallen Icarus, others concerned, but unsure how to assist. We broke up a tavern table to improvise a litter and carried the wounded warrior within. A surgeon being sent for, it appeared that our friend has a broken ankle, but should make a good recovery.

My next letter will provide a full account of the masquerade. Miss Brindley is to be present. As you anticipated, the passing of time has done much to revive my desire for this lady. My hope is that the fantastical nature of the masquerade will revive it still further.

You inquired about “the married woman.” Let me sketch a background.

When, as a schoolboy, I spent part of the year in York, I knew a girl named Sarah Kinsey, like me an orphan living with an aunt. Before leaving for France, I met her again in London, where she and the aunt were then resident. Partly, perhaps, because of the similarity of our circumstances, we were warm friends—almost something more. She wrote to me while I was away, but I am ashamed to say that at the time I was too agreeably distracted to reply. When I returned to London I visited the house in which she and her aunt had lived, but found that they had moved away. Some weeks later, however, and purely by chance, I did encounter her, and learned that she is now married to a wealthy merchant.

I should have accepted the situation, particularly since it was my own negligence that had brought it about. Two considerations made this difficult. One was that Sarah—now Sarah Ogden—seemed to me remarkably improved: wittier, more handsome, more assured. So much the better, you might say, for the man who had married her. However, I have since seen her husband and learned a little about him. He is a merchant, a dealer in diamonds, heavy, slow, and morose. Sarah’s new character I take to derive from the confidence that wealth confers. This Ogden can in no wise be worthy of her. He will make nothing of her intelligence, her wit. In his company she cannot but dwindle.

Let me be blunt: I am offended that this dull fellow enjoys favors that I could have had and am now denied. I look to seduce this woman away from him and into my bed. How the matter will end, I know not. There are a thousand such affairs in London now, developing and resolving themselves in the limited number of possible ways—most commonly, I suppose, in satiety and separation. But I cannot think of conclusions at present. It is in the nature of such an enterprise that the conquest is seen as everything and the consequence as nothing.

I have been led to confide so bluntly by the coincidence that yesterday, when visiting Crocker, I found myself being introduced to Ogden himself. It appears that he is advising on certain aspects of the embellishment of the new house, he having ventured beyond his trade in diamonds to deal in decorative arts of a more general kind. Though our conversation was brief, it fed my distaste for him and whetted my purpose.

I remain, &c.

I read through my letter with misgivings. Was I as ugly a human being as this summary suggested? I had purposed no more than to drop certain teasing hints, but jealous rage had taken charge of the quill and committed me before I was aware, in defiance of calculation or propriety. I could have torn up the sheet and started again, but had not the heart. My emotions in this matter were such that to describe them at all was to falsify. Yet these intricacies were contained within a simplicity. Either I accepted that Sarah was lost to me and so avoided her or I set out to seduce her: there was no middle course.

At the Black Lion the rash fool who had proposed suspending the rope across the road had been I, eager to create further possibilities of diversion for my godfather. I justified my recklessness by volunteering to be the first to try the experiment. When sober, I felt this defense to be a poor one: I had little fear of high places and was proficient at climbing of this sort. Winterton had become my victim—and at one remove a victim of Mr. Gilbert.

My dear Godfather,

Here is my promised account of the masquerade at Vauxhall.

Horn and Latimer had spoken slightingly of public masquerades, whether at Vauxhall or at Ranelagh, claiming that visitors of any social standing collude in a pretense—since they commonly recognize one another even in costume—while the rest are a motley crew of drinkers, lechers, prostitutes, and nobodies. These cavils notwithstanding, they seemed very ready to try the experiment again. As for myself, I admit to feeling some little excitement when preparing for the evening. You will know, I am sure, that these masquerades are uniquely open and unceremonious: anyone is admitted who can pay for a ticket; unescorted women frequently attend. I had heard on several sides that the resort to disguise, even when little more than a formality, tends to dissolve the restraints governing ordinary life.

I enjoyed some slight foretaste of this freedom while dressing for the evening. From a shop catering solely to masqueraders I had purchased a costume to translate me into a falcon. I was to be clad in black from head to knee; my stockings would suggest the scaliness of the bird’s legs, there were claws covering my feet, and when I raised my arms it would be to unfold dark wings, fringed with feathers. Standing before a tall mirror, I donned this apparel garment by garment, by no means impressed: I saw only my everyday self, rendered ridiculous. When I added the final item, however, a black mask with glittering false eyes and a sharp curving beak, the case was changed. His face now gone, Richard Fenwick had become a pitiless predator. At once I was enacting my new role, jerking my head from side to side, as though in quest of prey, the eyes alert, the beak jutting menacingly; I raised and flapped my wings of cloth, half believing that I might fly. The sense of metamorphosis was bewilderingly strong. I felt that if my case was typical, there would be strange impulses of attraction and repulsion in the air.