The Skull and the Nightingale. Michael Irwin

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СКАЧАТЬ think so, sir.’

      ‘I wonder if you do …’ His tone changed. ‘Let me say that I like the sound of your friend Mr Crocker. I have a taste for situations where normal conduct breaks down – where there is excess and abnormality. Perhaps you inferred as much.’

      ‘I did.’

      ‘Where Yardley is interested in plants and animals, my study is human conduct, the Passions: Vanity, Greed, Avarice, Rage, Lust …’

      Mr Gilbert enumerated these qualities with emphasis, speaking so fervidly as seeming to reveal a passion of his own. He leaned towards me across the table.

      ‘I propose an experiment. Life has slipped past me half unnoticed. I am tormented by a restlessness that I cannot subdue. I would wish my final years to be more vivid, more diversified, more – pungent. In short’ – he rapped the table – ‘my project is in some sense to live again. I would hope to live differently and dangerously – through you and through your exploits. I am not so old that reports of mischief and gallantry will fail to warm my blood.’

      He checked himself, and resumed in more measured tones: ‘I may no longer be robust but I am far from frail. The connoisseur who cannot paint may yet enjoy a picture. I aspire to be a connoisseur of experience – but the experiences will be yours.’

      He sat back and looked at me. ‘I await your response.’

      ‘I must consider, sir.’

      I spoke mechanically, but was incapable of considering anything, being lost in the situation. The moon shone down on us still. There were servants asleep in the dark house, birds and animals at rest all around us in their lairs. And here in the sweet-scented night air we were meditating the most eccentric of transactions. Was there, at that moment, any man in England engaged in a stranger conversation?

      ‘Why do you smile?’ asked Mr Gilbert.

      I found myself laughing aloud with real gaiety, as I might have laughed with Matt Cullen – something I had never previously done in the presence of my godfather.

      ‘I beg your pardon, sir: I was not aware that I was smiling. The reaction was involuntary. It means that I welcome your proposition.’

      ‘I am glad to hear it. But you will no doubt wish to ask me questions.’

      Indeed I did; but the most obvious inquiry – ‘How am I to be rewarded?’ – seemed below the dignity of these intimate exchanges. I tried to think.

      ‘How far will I be expected to go?’

      ‘As far as you see fit.’

      ‘Then I may, for example, go further in my pursuit of Miss Brindley?’

      ‘Much further.’ Mr Gilbert leaned forward again. ‘Your first account of this lady, in her pastoral guise, spoke directly to me. As a young man I found myself plagued: – the word is not too strong – by the pastoral. Art, poetry, drama insisted that love should be idyllic, Arcadian. The reality fell far short. The physical encounter could not match the rhetoric.’

      He glanced at me wryly: ‘If you ever feel such qualms I fancy that your physical appetites can usually over-ride them.’

      ‘I have found that to be the case.’

      The port had had its effect. We were smiling now, positively conspiratorial.

      ‘At the other extreme from pastoral fancy,’ said my godfather, ‘it seemed to me that after your duet Mrs Hurlock was looking at you with a kindly eye.’

      ‘I had a fleeting impression to that effect myself.’

      ‘Tell me, as a matter of hypothesis only: would your animal spirits render you capable of congress with that faded beauty?’

      I realized, with astonishment, that his question was seriously meant. I sought for an answer that would gratify him.

      ‘I am sure they would – given darkness and wine.’ The port prompted a blunter phrase. ‘I fancy I could make her squeal.’

      I feared I had gone too far, but the words elicited an unexpected grin of appreciation. Here was a new frankness: the boundaries of our relationship had been widened by a chance phrase.

      ‘I am impressed to hear it. Perhaps such an opportunity may one day arise.’

      I laughed with him, but was disconcerted. For years Mr Gilbert had comported himself with authority and even severity; yet he must all the while have carried these secret appetites in his mind, like maggots within an apple. I began to wonder whether he might be a rather wicked old man.

      Moonlight and port stirred me to further recklessness: ‘Then if I set about seducing a married woman?’

      ‘I would hope to receive a full account of the campaign – and the conquest.’

      We sat silent for a moment. The big dog shook himself and walked away into the shadows. After he had vanished Mr Gilbert resumed in an altered voice: ‘I have spoken frivolously. I must not allow myself to be misunderstood. Yes, I would be intrigued to enter a bedroom with you; but I do not look merely for carnal details. Your scruples and disappointments would be of equal moment to me.’

      He was very serious now. ‘I cannot easily explain myself. All my life I have mused on such matters, have debated them in my mind. But the debate was false, because one-sided. I could marshal the arguments from reason and morality: these were available in books. But the arguments from the other side, the arguments from passion, went unheard, because I never indulged my passions, never took moral risks. I was like a man who denounces wine having never tasted it. I look for a fairer disputation between passion and conscience, and I look to you to provide me the evidence I failed to gather for myself.’

      And again he asked: ‘Do you follow me?’

      ‘I do,’ I replied, and meant what I said.

      Mr Gilbert emptied his glass.

      ‘This is likely to prove a strange adventure for us – perhaps as much so as a voyage to the Indies.’

      ‘Where will our project end, sir?’

      ‘I cannot say. That uncertainty is part of the experiment.’

      He stood up, holding the table a moment to steady himself. I rose with him.

      ‘We have had an intriguing conversation. But it is late, and I must go to my bed. I think we now understand one another better. Give me your hand, Richard.’

      I did so, again looking him in the eyes, and our compact was sealed.

      The night was cooler now, but I went up to my bedroom still warmed by the port I had drunk, and by my crowding thoughts. More of substance had passed between Mr Gilbert and me in that hour on the terrace than in all our previous conversations combined. There was excitement and uncertainty ahead. Drawing back the curtain I stared out of my window at the moon, wondering what fantasies might be seething in my godfather’s head as he pulled on his nightshirt. What did he now think of me? Would he be able to sleep?

      There were doubts to tease me. My godfather СКАЧАТЬ