The Skull and the Nightingale. Michael Irwin

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      By the time I had risen the following morning my godfather was already occupied. I was glad of the opportunity to regain my equanimity, being fairly certain that he would expect us to behave as though nothing significant had passed between us. Presumably he was eager for me to return to London to commence upon my new duties. On the other hand it could seem indecorous in me to scuttle away forthwith to embark on debauchery.

      I wandered out into the sweet-scented, brightly-flowering gardens. I neither knew nor cared to know the names of the plants that were pleasuring my eyes and nose. Here was sensuality of a kind nicely adjusted to my godfather’s elderly capacities. It struck me now that his proposal might prove as challenging to himself as to me. He had mentioned the danger to his posthumous prospects – a danger likely to loom larger in his eyes as time went on. Might there not also be a physical risk in tasting red meat after years of living on pulse? Perhaps his heart might be over-strained. Perhaps the old gentleman would expire in a spasm of vicarious excitement as he read of a defloration. Might not that be a happy outcome for both of us, I asked myself. Provided, of course, that he had made an appropriate will.

      Strolling to the rear of the house I came upon two or three peacocks, which were flourishing their mighty tail-feathers in glittering patterns of blue and green. I was delighted to see these strutting avian beaux – kindred spirits, celebrating the carnal impulses of spring. Yet on closer inspection they offered food for philosophy. Supporting each great arc of splendour was a corsetry of struts; a mechanical apparatus rooted around the privy parts, the inglorious bum. The proximity of luminous beauty and crude function was the pastoral paradox reduced to visual aphorism. Fortunately for these preening, small-brained birds they could display and breed, display and breed, untroubled by reflection.

      I encountered Mr Gilbert late that afternoon. He was a little freer and more affable than I had usually seen him, but he made no allusion to our nocturnal conversation. It appeared that he had been sitting for his portrait, a project on which the painter, a Worcester man, had been engaged for some time. When I expressed interest my godfather took me to see the incomplete picture. It showed him on the terrace, leaning upon the balustrade and looking out across the green fields of his estate. I offered compliments appropriate to the intermediate state of the portrait, which promised to be a sufficiently accomplished piece of work. It preserved some aspects of my godfather’s personality very accurately – but others had vanished through the strainer of the artist’s observation. Posterity would gain from it no glimpse of the man I had spoken with the night before.

      ‘You have visited much of the house, I believe,’ said Mr Gilbert, ‘but I would like to show you a corner you will not have seen.’

      He led me up a narrow, winding staircase that took us past all three storeys and eventually to a door opening on to a flat portion of the roof. We emerged into airy vacancy, with clouds blowing across the blue sky overhead and a wide green landscape spread out all around us. For the first time I could see my godfather’s estate – perhaps to be my future inheritance – as a whole. It seemed to me a vast expanse, but he pointed out its limits.

      ‘There where the woodland begins,’ he said, ‘lies Mr Hurlock’s property. If it were combined with my own I might be the greatest landowner in the county.’

      At dinner that evening he made no explicit reference to our nocturnal conversation, although one or two remarks showed it was very much alive in his mind. Only at one point did he say something unexpected: ‘By the bye, you have made mention of your friend Matt Cullen. I have heard a little about that young man from an acquaintance in Malvern who knows the family. You might do well to avoid confiding too far in him. I will say no more than that.’

      Since he had closed the matter I did not expostulate, but I was both puzzled and amused by the warning.

      Two days later I was again in the coach to London, rattling along wet roads amid falling white petals that mingled with the spring showers.

      7

      Once again optimism was modified by second thoughts. To be sure I should easily find matter enough to please my godfather in the new mode now proposed. My dealings with Kitty could hardly fail to supply salacious or comic entertainment. With Horn and Latimer I could continue to sample the heartier pleasures of the town, perhaps even an occasional brawl or debauch. Through Crocker I had hopes of less commonplace diversions. My explorations of London at large could continue as before.

      Yet I was wary of possible pitfalls. It seemed to me that Mr Gilbert, perhaps under the influence of moonlight and port, had been inconsistent. He wanted a taste of the sensual pleasures he had missed, but he might not welcome the inference that his caution had been timorous. I should never seem to hint: ‘Such are the joys your faint-heartedness has denied you’. Perhaps I should even imply that there had been wisdom in his doubts: my amorous joys could be seasoned with disappointment.

      But there were deeper issues. It had seemed no great matter to offer Gilbert an account of my lighter pleasures. Now he seemed to be demanding an intimacy, between us that might prove positively contaminating. Had I not promised myself that my attempt upon Sarah would be a private narrative of which he would hear nothing? Yet had I not all but broached the topic to him? Unless I exerted myself I might be corrupted before I knew it.

      I looked forward to discussing these issues with Matt Cullen. The warning from my godfather I would of course disregard: given the delicacy – or indelicacy – of our compact I could see why he would not wish me to have a confidant with connections in the county. I had no such concern, and was in urgent need of a sympathetic ear.

      Such solace, however, was to be denied me. Waiting in Cathcart Street was a letter:

       Dear Dick,

       We may be about to pass one another on a country road in our respective stage coaches. I have been summoned to Malvern by my father, who has been laid low by the gout. Knowing that condition to be a painful one I am not unsympathetic; but I suspect that my presence will afford him little relief.

       I hope that my visit to the country will prove a brief one, and that I will be conversing with you again in the near future. Meanwhile pray offer such succour as you can to my kinsman the Duke, who will be all but inconsolable at my absence.

       Yours, &c.

       P.S. I recently fell in with a quiet fellow named Gow who proved to work for the diamond merchant of whom we have spoken. It seems Mr Ogden conducts his business from premises in Duke Street, near the coffee-house. You may wish to stroll there to appraise your rival.

      I scarcely took in the postscript at the time in my disappointment at Matt’s absence. But I was cheered by a second note, delivered only hours before my arrival:

       If you should be free to pay him a visit around noon tomorrow Tom Crocker would be pleased to see you.

       My dear Godfather,

       I was pleased to find at my lodgings an invitation to visit Thomas Crocker, although СКАЧАТЬ