The Skull and the Nightingale. Michael Irwin

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       My dear Godfather,

       I continue pertinacious in the pursuit of pleasure. This afternoon I took tea with Miss Brindley, tête-à-tête, at her lodgings in Rose Street.

       It seems to me that in the negotiation that ensued we were both to be commended for the art with which we translated into euphemism what we knew to be a business transaction. I represented myself as a young fellow still making my way in the world, well provided for but (alas!) in no position to commit myself to a settled way of life. Miss Kitty’s sketch of her past was the stuff of a country ballad. She had left her native village for love of a soldier who had promised marriage but then deserted her. It would have gone hard for her had she not fallen in with Jane Page, who had secured her some trifling employment in the theatre. Since then she had advanced in her profession, and had hopes of rising further.

       You may wish to know something of her appearance. In person she inclines to be slightly plump, but in that pleasing way that seems to be the effect of youthfulness only. She has large blue eyes, a clear complexion and a ready smile often followed, however, by a lowering of her eyes, as though she is in doubt that she may have been too forward. In manner she is open and candid, a quality in the fair sex that has always attracted me.

       When considering her career in London she was thankful, she said, for her good fortune, because she could have fared far worse. On the other hand she had broken all ties with her parents, her prospects in the theatre were uncertain, and she could not but feel anxiety concerning her future. (When I referred, in studiously general terms, to the most notorious perils of her profession, she replied ‘What would I know of those, sir?’)

       It was perhaps droll that we each affected simplicity while signalling to one another as directly as circling animals. Our attempted deceptions (and self-deceptions) were mutually apprehended and tolerated. The common ground to which we tiptoed our way was the fiction that we were like-minded innocents from the country, ill at ease in this unfeeling town. What Miss Brindley wants, of course, though she cannot say as much, is a wealthy husband, or failing that, as will most probably be the eventual case, a sufficiently wealthy protector. There are members of her profession who have achieved as much. My hope, and in effect my offer, was that at this early point in her career I could offer her a companionable and moderately remunerative apprenticeship for the future to which she aspires.

       I have written more glibly than I feel, representing Miss Brindley, her charms and little stratagems, as also my own pursuit of her, with irony and a hint of derision. However, I have another perception of a warmer and more generous kind. After all there is a natural charm and even innocence in her disposition. I am surely not the first man to have had a conversation of this kind with her but, equally surely, I am by no means the twenty-first.

       By the time we parted we had reached, as it seemed to me, an understanding as to the immediate future course of our relationship, and this with no hint of a leer, a smirk or a double entendre. The young lady will surely have observed that I was powerfully aroused by her; yet on quitting her apartment I ventured only to kiss her small hand.

       When I come to do more you will hear further from

       Yours, &c.

      Mr Gilbert’s reply must have been written very soon after he had received my letter:

       My dear Richard,

       It would appear that you have been living a full and varied life in London, very much along the lines I would have hoped.

       However I now feel the need to discuss with you directly certain issues arising from our project. I would be obliged, therefore, if at your earliest convenience you could arrange to pass a few days here at Fork Hill.

       I remain, &c.

      I took the coach the following morning.