The Skull and the Nightingale

After a hesitation he continued, as though lost in soliloquy: ‘A man may avoid the sin he is too timid to commit. In such a case, surely, the professed belief is mere faint-heartedness. Might not the Almighty deem that the fellow has been cowardly rather than virtuous? Might not the eternal reward be curtailed accordingly? If so, the poor devil would be twice deprived – in this life and again in the next.’

I tried to meet the challenge: ‘Then you believe in an after-life?’

‘Of course.’ A pause. ‘From time to time.’

Somewhat baffled by now, I tried to exert myself: ‘Sir, I am not sure where your remarks are tending.’

‘Then I must make myself clear.’ My godfather drew a breath and spoke out with decision. ‘The case is this. I have preserved appearances for so long that none of my neighbours know – indeed, I scarcely know myself – what lies below the surface of my character. Caution and good fortune have protected me, but they have protected me too far – protected me from life itself. I have never married, never fathered a child, never broken a bone, or so much as seen a corpse, save on a gibbet. I live in a great house defended by servants and dogs. The price I pay for my safety is imprisonment of a kind. I need a window in this confinement, a window through which to see a wider life.’

‘Were you not saying as much to me on my last visit?’

‘I was, but I wish to go further. There lies the point – I wish to go further.’

He took a full mouthful of port. By now he was agitated, his breathing quicker.

‘I invited you to describe the life of London. But as I read your letters I came to recognize that I seek something more particular – the recklessness of personal doings. Do you follow me?’

‘I 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 was encouraging me to run risks on his behalf, moral and physical: yet what had he offered in return? Nothing: the compact had been entirely one-sided. But were we not now collaborators? Surely the moral scruples he had mentioned would ensure that his partner in sin would receive an adequate reward? I would have to be content with these insubstantial reassurances.

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 surprised to see that the address given was not that of the house he had formerly occupied. He is now to be found in Wyvern Street.

There were to be further surprises. Assuming that the occasion would be a formal one I dressed accordingly. When I arrived, however, I was admitted to a large house, in which were to be seen no guests and very little furniture. I was left to wait in a high drawing-room, containing no more than a single table and a few chairs. The walls were bare and the windows uncurtained. To increase my confusion my host shuffled in wearing no wig and clad in a loose coat and slippers. However, he greeted me with a smile.

‘Mr Fenwick, I must apologize: you will think my invitation misleading. It was sent on impulse, without sufficient thought. I hoped to welcome you informally and get to know you better. I should have made my purpose clearer.’

It was curious to see Mr Crocker in this altered guise, like an actor who has stripped off the trappings of the dramatic role you have just seen him playing. He had shambled in inelegantly, but was serene in his own domain. Even his gestures and facial expressions were altered: he could almost have been a huge schoolboy. I infer that his public appearances require contrivance. The large legs must be constrained by tight stockings, the loose bulk strapped into a corset, so that he can preside and move with a show of dignity.

Crocker sent for some coffee.

‘You see the place three-quarters empty.’ he said. ‘I am at present moving house. Here – let me show you something that may amuse you.’

He led me to the far side of the great room. Leaning against a shuttered window were a number of paintings, loosely wrapped with paper, and apparently to be hung on the bare walls. Crocker tore the paper from one of the smaller ones.

‘Thanks to my excessive wealth,’ said he, ‘I have been enabled to have my features recorded by the ingenious Mr Hogarth.’

It was a fine portrait of Crocker’s face, full of wit and intelligence.

‘Would you not say, Mr Fenwick, that here is a handsome man?’

‘I would indeed,’ I replied, surprised by the self-regarding question.

‘Then what say you to this?’

He ripped the paper from a larger work, over six foot in height. Looking out from it, all but identically, was the same face, but in this case providing merely a summit to a bulging pyramid that filled the frame – Crocker’s body, finely dressed, but grotesquely abundant.

‘I fancy Mr Hogarth enjoyed the joke of this double commission,’ said he, ‘though he was too courteous to say as much. Which of the pictures would you call the truer?’

I hesitated. ‘They are equally true. But they tell different truths.’

‘That is justly said. I know which of those truths I find the more flattering, but I am obliged to inhabit both of them. I had it in mind to hang these pictures here side by side, by way of a satire; but I think the gesture might make my visitors uncomfortable.’

Coffee being brought, we sat down to it – or in Crocker’s case sprawled back at ease in an over-sized chair. He launched companionably into conversation: ‘This year I decided to re-arrange my life. I came to London and looked about for a large property. You see me in the course of migration.’

‘And your country estate?’

Crocker blew out his cheeks and then drank some coffee. ‘I think to sell it. Lately I found that the countryside lowered my spirits. I would trudge round my land and return to the house despondent. The sheep and the cattle, grazing the fields year after year after year filled me with melancholy. I am glad to be away from them.’

‘Was that a sufficient reason for migration to the capital?’

‘It was but part of the reason. The chief motive was a desire for diversion.’

‘Diversion from what?’

‘From monotony. From cows and sheep. From thought. From myself.’

‘Does the remedy work?’

‘It has kept my mind busy. Here is a mansion with many rooms. I am having it painted, and have chosen the colours to be used. I have brought in some furnishings and carpets and curtains and ordered many more. When all is in place I must host a great party to declare the house open. But there is also work to be done outside. Let me show you.’

He drained his cup and led me to a great window at the rear of the room.

‘As you can see,’ he said, ‘we have hardly begun.’

Here was a large space, apparently a courtyard. What chiefly took my eye was a broken wall at the far end, where some workmen were busy.

‘Surely,’ said I, ‘that was the wall we pushed down the other week?’

‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Thomas Crocker is a gentleman, and would push down no wall but his own. As you see, it is being re-built with a wide gateway, to admit carriages.’

‘Might not your workmen have taken it down more efficiently?’

‘Much more efficiently. But I had read that a wall could be demolished by the method we attempted, and it tickled me to try the experiment by moonlight.’

‘Another exercise in diversion?’

‘It was.’ He was suddenly rueful. ‘But such pleasures are short-lived. I felt a pang of glee as the wall began to yield; then in the morning all I had for our pains was a mound of dirt and broken brickwork. No matter’ – he brightened once more – ‘the men are at work and elegance will be retrieved from chaos.’

‘Was there not some pleasure in recruiting your friends to perform this task?’

‘Certainly. And it was healthy exertion for a band of tipplers and tattlers – the most useful work they had done in months.’

He broke into a chuckle at this, his stomach shaking, but then apologized: ‘You must excuse me, Mr Fenwick: I laugh too easily. My life is often ridiculous – and like Laurence Sterne I believe that laughter does us good.’

As we wandered back towards the coffee he broke into song, his voice echoing through the hollow room:

Now to sweeten the night

Let the bow sweep the string.

Hear the music take flight

As the violins sing—

I chimed in for the chorus:

Sing, sing, sing—

As the violins sing.

Catching one another’s eye we launched with spirit into the topers’ second verse:

Let horse-hair scrape gut

Till the cat mews away,

And we caper and strut,

As we hear the horse neigh—

Neigh, neigh, neigh—

As we hear the horse neigh.

‘I observe, Mr Crocker,’ said I, ‘that you do not care to be confined by formalities.’

‘I have made the same observation regarding yourself, Mr Fenwick. It was one of my reasons for inviting you here this morning.’

We proceeded to converse with great freedom. I felt flattered when he remarked that he is rarely so open: he has many drinking companions but few friends. He frankly disclosed his view of his own situation: fate has been hard on him with regard to physical appearance, but correspondingly generous in terms of wealth. He will use this asset to minimize his disadvantages and make his life as agreeable as it can be.