The Skull and the Nightingale. Michael Irwin

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СКАЧАТЬ discussion lurched between local and national concerns. Such political comment as I heard was so fanciful that it could have concerned the government of Japan: but after all these folk were a hundred country miles from London – two full days of travel. Hurlock blustered, Thorpe was emollient, Quentin brusque. Yardley spoke but little. My godfather was the best informed of the company, and showed considerable social address. With no attempt to dominate he yet led the conversation, his manner dry and sometimes satirical. He took in all that passed, and had a word for everybody at the table.

      Certain fragments of talk stayed in my memory. At one time my attention was caught by a sudden intensity in my godfather’s voice.

      ‘We are told,’ he said, ‘that the Almighty requires praise. I cannot understand why. Is it not as though I should want my dogs to praise me for feeding them?’

      ‘Perhaps, sir,’ ventured Thorpe, ‘you are interpreting the instruction too literally. Might it not be a figure – a mode of enjoining us to an active appreciation of our existence in a miraculous universe?’

      ‘You men of the cloth are all alike,’ cried Hurlock, through a mouthful of food. ‘If we question any mystery of religion you tell us that it is no more than a damned figure. What do you leave us of substance to believe in?’

      His truculence momentarily silenced the table.

      ‘There are the commandments,’ said Thorpe, mildly. ‘Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery.’

      Hurlock made to expostulate further, but Mr Gilbert spoke up before him.

      ‘Yes,’ said he, with an emphasis that concluded the exchange, ‘those would seem to offer us something to steer by – and something to fear.’

      When the ladies retired the conversation took a different turn. My godfather, who had drunk frugally, seeming to enjoy his sips more than Hurlock his mouthfuls, proceeded to draw out Mr Yardley, who had hitherto been almost silent. With a little prompting he was induced to address the company on the subject of poisons. He spoke in a high, wavering voice, chuckling from time to time at the curiosities he mentioned:

      ‘We have little understanding of susceptibility. A substance that will gratify one organism may prove fatal to another. You gentlemen drink brandy with pleasure, but it is known that a small amount of that beverage will kill a cat. Heh, heh! Sheep thrive on grass, but clover may prove fatal to them. We know that a snake-bite may kill, but what shall we say when a man dies from the sting of a bee, as has happened in this very parish? Heh, heh! This is the mystery of reaction: the element introduced combines fatally with something in the constitution of the victim.’

      My godfather had been listening intently: ‘Might not such an external element equally prove advantageous? If brandy can kill a cat, what say you to the possibility that a saucer of burgundy might transform its intelligence?’

      Yardley sniggered. ‘The example is grotesque, but in principle your hypothesis is just. The world is young: there are a million possibilities still unexplored.’

      ‘What possibilities?’ cried Hurlock, crimson with drink, ‘I don’t follow you, sir.’

      ‘For example,’ said my godfather, evenly, ‘the possibility that when A is randomly made subject to B – A being a human-being, and B a substance, a situation, or even an idea – some unpredictable outcome may result.’

      This proposition being beyond Hurlock in his fuddled state, he flew into a passion.

      ‘Then let us fly to the moon, gentlemen,’ he shouted, banging his fist on the table. ‘Let us fly to the moon and have done!’

      Nothing exceptionable had taken place during the course of the evening; yet I could not rid myself of a sense of oppression. The guests had seemed constrained by Mr Gilbert’s presence, as though a little cowed by him. Even Hurlock’s outbursts had had a quality of nervous defiance. Might my gentlemanly godfather be intimidating?

      The following day he asked my opinion of his guests. Seeking to be diplomatic without insipidity I ventured that Hurlock had seemed not unlike a stage representation of a coarse hunting squire, that Yardley had said a number of interesting things, and that Quentin had something enigmatic about him.

      ‘Your comments are just, as far as they go’ said my godfather. ‘Hurlock is a fool. Yardley is haphazardly learned.’

      ‘And Mr Quentin?’

      My godfather reflected before replying: ‘I can understand why you found him enigmatic. To me he is not, because I know the answer to the riddle.’ His voice lightened. ‘You were properly attentive to the ladies – gallantly so in the case of Mrs Quentin, whose bad teeth, as you must have noticed, foul her breath. Time has been unkind to her: she was comely as a young woman. Mrs Hurlock was the local beauty, eagerly courted; but she made the mistake of marrying Hurlock, who reduced her to a breeding animal. She has now ceased to breed. Perhaps neither woman has a life worth leading.’

      Startled by this bluntness, I inclined my head and tried to look sagacious.

      ‘You have now made the acquaintance of my nearest neighbours, such as they are. I contrive to remain on good terms with all of them.’

      ‘I am sure you do, sir,’ I hazarded.

      Mr Gilbert pursed his thin lips and then spoke reflectively.

      ‘It is in their interest that we should be on good terms. All of them are in some sense in debt to me. It is remarkable how much influence moderate wealth can buy.’

      He spoke without emphasis, but the passage of conversation had shown a greater astringency in him than I had ever previously witnessed. It had also reminded me of the precariousness of my own position. Perhaps that had been the intention.

      Over the succeeding days I had a good deal of time to myself. Much of it I passed in the library, where a great fire was kept burning. I found there many publications of recent date, including the two volumes of Dr Johnson’s great Dictionary, and a number of works concerning philosophy, medicine and astronomy. It was a pleasure to meet also my old friends Tom Jones and Roderick Random. Their presence surprised me. Did this solitary country gentleman sit peacefully by the fire, lost in tales of assignations and boisterous pranks? That possibility seemed the more remote in that here and in other rooms I saw evidence of Mr Gilbert’s speculative curiosity: a terrestrial globe, a microscope, a brass telescope, a great magnet, and an articulated human skeleton.

      When weary of reading I explored the house. Everywhere there were paintings, hangings and furnishings to admire. Even to my inexperienced eye it was apparent that the Gilbert family, about which I knew next to nothing, had been distinguished not merely by wealth, but by taste and connoisseurship.

      I traced back the family line through a series of portraits. There were similarities of feature across the generations, but more striking was a cast of expression that suggested an inherited family temperament. Repeatedly a composed, even severe, countenance implied lurking passions controlled by force of will. I concluded that any one of these gentlemen would have proved a shrewd antagonist in argument or business or a court of law.

      As viewed from the drive that led from the main gates the house was СКАЧАТЬ