*
In St Anne’s Court, the doors to both the house and to Matilda’s attic were unlocked and the room itself empty, as he suspected it would be. She had clearly departed. The gaudy forestage of the screens had been stripped back to reveal the full poverty of the chamber, its patchily whitewashed walls relieved by blooms of blue-black mould, its sloping planks unvarnished and broken here and there with copses of splinters.
Laying himself down, despite the discomfort of the floor and the distractions of the day, he slept.
The bell of St Giles woke him too late to count the hour but St Anne’s followed hard upon it and he found, to his surprise, that it was seven in the evening. The shutter, raised, admitted the last of the day’s light. He had a flask of ale and a pie with him and now made a supper, delighted that it brought him pleasure not revulsion; he resolved to buy more of the same on his walk back to Westminster. By the time he’d finished, full night had taken the town and, rising and brushing himself down, he set out.
Since he had resolved to bury himself at school, there were two farewells he had to take. He had no doubt that both buildings would be watched by Melbury’s jackals, but he would approach both carefully; no one would notice him standing briefly outside them, nor the silent kisses he’d dispatch between his raised cloak and uncocked tricorn. Though Golden Square lay on his route out of Soho, Jack decided he would visit there first. He adored Fanny; but he recognized that the adoration lodged more in his loins than his heart. Since Clothilde held the supremacy in that organ, he would make his final farewell there.
The coaching mews that led to the rear of Fanny’s house was still busy with the industry of stables. But shadows between their open doors let Jack flit by, swift and unobserved. He had thought merely to hoist himself upon the wall and gaze upon his mistress. But something made him reach up to see if the key – their key – was still in position. It would be a sign that, despite everything, Fanny still desired him to visit.
The key was indeed there but it did not rest alone above the lintel. It was wrapped in paper and, squatting on the edge of a spill of lanterns, Jack unfolded the sheet and read: ‘Vauxhall. Tonight. I must see you. F.’
The ‘must’ was underlined and Jack traced his finger along it. Of course, she ‘must’ see him! She would wish to make amends for their all too hasty separation. Perhaps his Lordship had proved adamant in anger and thrown her out. Jack was almost tempted to go to the Pleasure Gardens at Vauxhall; he was concerned for her. But he knew he could not help her with some bravo’s knife in his guts. Safety now dictated he stuck to his plan, and stayed in School till the furore died down. After the Election for Trinity, in ten days, two weeks perhaps, he would emerge and see Fanny again.
With a sigh, he retreated back into Soho. ‘Clothilde,’ he whispered to himself. After all the women he’d had dealings with in the last days – Matilda, even Fanny and especially the nameless Cyprian he’d woken beside – Clothilde shone, a beacon of purity. He didn’t know why he’d entangled himself with these others when his ‘little mermaid’ was the only one who had true possession of his heart. How he longed now just to sit beside her, tentatively reach for her soft white hand, gaze into those blue-green eyes. How peaceful would that be. For now, it had to be a paradise postponed, but no one would stop him gazing a last time upon the Promised Land.
He knew something was wrong before he’d turned the corner. Something pierced the street vendors’ cries, rose above the shouts and guffaws of the taverns’ clientele, a wail of such agony that it even rode through the roar of London; and there was something in that wail, so familiar that the pudding he had just purchased was thrown down upon the cobbles. Jack began to run.
The house of Guen was far enough away still for Jack to believe that the pack of shouting people was gathered before another door, that the cries came from another throat, the neighbour’s daughter, not hers, not hers. Yet when he reached the edges of the crowd, he knew. Close-built and slim though these Soho houses were, there could be no doubt – something terrible was happening in Clothilde’s home.
The backs before him did not want to give so he forced them to, using an elbow here, a shove there, a collar caught and yanked. The voices were angry already and that only increased with his treatment of those who stood before him. Blows were aimed, some landed, but they delayed him not at all. Every obstruction cleared made the sounds ahead sharper, the girl’s cry – Clothilde’s cry! – counterpointed now with another note, a man’s bass bellowing in rage and distress.
The final crowd, standing deep on the stairwell, was harder to thrust through but he did it, losing his tricorn to the mob, which thinned on the last flight. Two men, with arms spread like nets, held back the surge. But they couldn’t hold Jack, who dodged their grasping hands and fell up the last few steps, halted finally by the scene there.
Claude, the apprentice-cousin, lay on his back on the top landing, a man crouched over him, pressing already bloodied towels to his head. His face was pale, though beneath the eyes and at the throat, startlingly blue. Indeed all the colours were vivid set against that chalkiness but none more so than the scarlet of the blood which seemed to have poured in quantities beyond credit upon wood, cloth, skin. The man was alive, Jack saw, but barely.
There was more blood in the room beyond, the room of wailing that Jack now entered so reluctantly. He saw it straight away from the threshold, even though it was not indiscriminately spread here, indeed because it was quite contained. The contrast was even more vivid than on the face outside for the stain of it against the ivory of Clothilde’s dress, the one she’d worn new for him two days before, made it stand out. It was a ripped and shredded thing now, desecrated as a sacked church.
As soon as he saw, he knew. It held him in the doorway as if he’d used all his strength to get this far, had none left to propel him any further, only his eyes seeking something, somewhere else to look at in her room – the spilled chair, the broken porcelain shepherd, the tumbled fireguard. At last the merman, his most recent gift to her, its monkey grin transformed to a scream.
Then she saw him and her cry, which, it had seemed, could not ascend any higher in pitch nor volume, did. ‘Non! Non! Non non non!’ she shrieked, throwing herself off the chair, her legs scrabbling against the floorboards, driving herself toward the corner of the room, pushing down against the bloodstained skirt that would rise as she moved. Her father, who had started toward her when she fell, now looked where she was staring and as soon as he saw who it was, he was off the floor, grabbing Jack by the lapels, propelling him backwards to crash against the wall.
‘Violeur! Violeur!’ he screamed, again and again, and though he did not know that word in French, Jack had no need for a translation. He also had no will to resist as he was jerked from the wall, slammed back on each repetition, the watercolours that Clothilde adored falling, the few plates left on the mantelpiece tumbling to smash. Only the merman stood, unshiftable, mocking, as the room shook.
Monsieur Guen was small and Jack large, but the little man did not slacken his assault till Jack slumped further down the wall and could not be lifted. Still the older man tried, pulling at his shirt, popping the buttons there, crying all the time that same accusation. And when Jack reached the floor, in the pause after the last unavailing tug from above, both men at last heard the words Clothilde had been shouting all the time.
‘Ce n’était pas lui, Papa. Pas lui. Pas lui.’
His breaths coming in huge gasps, Monsieur Guen staggered away to tumble by his daughter. She thrust her face, her muttered denials, into his shirt front.
Jack crawled across the floor to them. He reached out to touch her arm but it was as if he’d stung her, so quickly did she withdraw it. ‘ Clothilde,’ he said, his hand still outstretched, ‘my dearest, my sweet …’
Still she would not look at him. ‘How …’ he tried again. ‘Who … ?’
Suddenly she forced her face away. ‘I fought, Jack,’ she whispered fiercely.
‘Look!’ She thrust out her fingernails, torn, bleeding. Re-garde! I …’ She made slashing motions through the air. ‘But there were two … three … they beat Claude … they …’ The fierceness passed, more weeping came.
‘Clothilde, did you … did you know him?’
A slight shake of the head. The words, when they came, were muffled yet clear enough and the worst he’d ever heard. ‘They look for you.’ She did not raise her face when she said it, which Jack thought just as well. If she had looked at him at that moment, he was sure he would have died.
While I lay skulking in a rat hole, they came for her. The thought tore at his guts, worse than any result liquor could have achieved. Melbury had stalked him and failing to find him had traced Jack’s haunts, taken his vengeance. While the schoolboy had played at being a savage, the Noble Lord had proved he was one.
Tears came. Through their blur, he looked to the floor, to broken glass shimmering amidst shards of pottery. His mind suddenly too full to think, he could only look, stare … here, half a porcelain rose, there a piece of lapis that had once rested on the side of a wine cup. Amidst them all something glittered, something silver. At first he thought it a coin; yet though it was a similar size to a crown, even through his tears he saw the shape was different. Reaching for it, wiping his eyes, he recognized the metal tag he held. It was a season’s ticket for the Vauxhall Gardens. He knew it was not Clothilde’s for she had been begging him for months to take her there. The front side held a design of the statue of Handel that dominated the south walk. The rear, as Jack knew, held the ticket holder’s name.
For the longest moment after turning it over, his mind could not take in what was engraved there. A number, ‘178’, and below that, a name. His family name. But it was not preceded by J, Jack or even John. This token’s owner was a ‘Mr C. Absolute.’
Craster.
He knew his cousin often frequented the Gardens; knew because his father complained at the expenditure.
Jack wasn’t sure how he got up nor when he crossed the room. He was just in the doorway, looking back at the stained dress, the shuddering figures, trying to speak, failing, finding that all his concentration was in his right hand where he was crushing a silver token. Turning, he began to push through those still bunched on the stairs. Yet his departure was very different from his arrival. No one sought to hinder him now.
Perhaps it was his face.
–ELEVEN –
Masquerade
It was a hard pull against the tide from Dung Wharf to Gunhouse Stairs but Jack was grateful for the distraction the exercise provided. Despite the late hour, the river was still crowded with coal barges and cockboats, nightsoil cogs and wherries. The Thames was never at rest. Jack had no flint to light the oil lamp in his bow and had had no will to seek one. He’d wasted enough time in his detour to Mrs Porten’s, his boarding house, grabbing only what was essential to what lay ahead: another cloak to replace the one he’d lost at Clothilde’s; his sword. But he was well used to the handling of the skiff the Mohocks kept at the dock near the school and if others could not see him, he was aware of them. Using the tide, driving the oars individually and together, he slipped through the traffic and soon was stepping onto the stairs below Lambeth. A rung and a long rope secured his boat. It was not the closest landing to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens but that one would be crowded and well lit to welcome the night’s revellers and Jack needed to arrive unobserved.
Though the first streets were dark, wharf front and warehouses, the further he progressed the brighter the world became, passing from trade to pleasure. Lamps lit stalls selling everything from quack potions to stewed grigs, while beyond their light, women urged him into the shadows. As he drew closer to his destination, the stalls became plusher, the women prettier. Fans, decorated with the latest events, were offered to him, porcelain figures, charcoal sketches, broadsides, ballads – and masks. Masks were everywhere, rows of them like an audience in the theatre. Jack still had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched and these ranks of eye sockets only increased that sensation. But as he approached the entrance to the Pleasure Gardens, the reason for their abundance became clear. Everyone lined up at the gateway was wearing or carrying a mask.
Jack stepped to the side. ‘Is it a masquerade tonight?’ he asked a stall-keeper.
‘It is, sir, aye,’ came the reply. ‘And you have come in the nick, for I’ve precious few left.’
Cursing the necessity – for how would he swiftly find his enemy in a place where everyone was hidden? – Jack purchased the simplest of Venetian dominoes, the commonest disguise.
The last of his florins bought him entrance, but beyond the gilt gates there was another problem.
‘Your sword, sir.’
Jack tipped the mask up to his forehead so he could look properly at the lilac-coated flunkey who’d accosted him. ‘I never give up my sword, sir.’
‘You will tonight, sir,’ replied the man, ‘or you’ll not come in. We collect for families whose men have died in the war. We do not seek to make yet more widows and orphans.’
Those queuing impatiently behind loudly urged Jack to comply. With a shrug, he did, taking the token, ignoring the coin tray shoved toward him. ‘No swords’ was becoming the norm in more and more places. Before long they’ll ban ’em in the theatres, Jack thought sourly. The only thing that improved his mood was the coolness of metal within his boot, the knife he’d stolen from Mrs Porten’s.
Stepping beyond the portico that covered the entranceway, Jack stopped and looked around. He had been coming to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens for years, as a child by day with his mother to gaze at the curiosities, later as a young man with his Mohocks to gaze at girls. He had not been lately, the atmosphere tame and cool compared to the hothouse of Covent Garden. Respectable behaviour was expected here where tailors and bankers, jewellers and shopkeepers walked, ate and drank beside the nobility, and kept their excesses in check. The King could sup in a box next to a brewer. But if he wanted to fornicate with his mistress he’d have to do it outside the grounds.
Yet Jack knew tonight would be different. The point of a mask was to conceal identity, leaving the wearer free to indulge hidden desires. The sober burgher, as Bacchus, could drink till he puked. His prim wife could display her flesh as Salome while the rector ogled her through her veils. And a scholar from Westminster could don the domino of Venice and transform into an assassin. He would show Craster as much mercy as he had shown to Clothilde.
But by the time he’d twice trod the Walks, circled the Temple of Comus, lingered at the Cascade where the crowds were thickest, Jack was close to despair. It would have been difficult to distinguish someone amongst these numbers on a normal evening; at a masquerade, it was near impossible. His steps began to drag and, by the time he stood before Handel’s statue, his anger was being replaced by exhaustion. He clung to the memories of Clothilde’s agony, her shrieks, her bloodied dress. He needed his fury to fuel him; yet the masks – leering eyed, lolling tongued – sapped it from him. Tall though he was, he felt that everyone there was looming above him, bearing down upon him.
Jack sank onto a small stone ledge, pulling off his domino, lowering his head into his hands. What could he do but return to his school, skulking behind its walls to avoid the man who’d left the black-edged card at his house while being slowly consumed by his failure to act, like the Hamlet he’d seen with his mother only a few weeks before at the Lane. What had the fellow said, something about ‘dull revenge’?
He became aware of a Pastoral being played, composed by the man whose stone figure loomed above him now, who had also written the Messiah that her father had taken Clothilde to hear at Coram’s Fields at Christmas. She had not stopped talking of the experience and Jack, to please her, had attempted to play some of the German’s music on his flute. In truth, he had no true skill at the instrument, but she had laughed and clapped and cried for more. And that
vision, of her happy tears mingled with the vision of her most recent ones, had Jack up and moving now, his anger bright again, towards the Rotunda. Many did the same, for the concert and dancing there were the climax of any evening at Vauxhall. Everyone would be there in that gaudy room. Craster would be there.
The huge chandelier in the Rotunda shimmered with close to a hundred flames. The walls that circled were studded by sashed windows beneath which mirrors, reflecting the light of yet more candles in their sconces, were angled down to reflect the company back to itself. Pushing just inside the door, pressing his back to a wall there, it was to one of these mirrors that Jack looked, for it reduced the mob to sections.
Fauns mixed with satyrs, Mother Shipton conversed with Punch and Joan, while the wardrobes of the Theatre Royal had been pilfered to recreate Olympus. Jack saw Zeus take a pinch of snuff from Dionysus, the powder snorted up under the plaster mask; a chubby Poseidon used his trident to lift the cloak of Artemis. The next mirror conjured a different scene; at centre, His Satanic Majesty whispering into Caesar’s ear. And next to them …
Jack started, looked from the mirrors down into the crowd. Once seen, it was unmissable, the focus of the entire room. A woman stood, her pose an agony of embarrassment. Naked. Perhaps not quite, for jewels glowed in her piled-up hair, a scarf obscured her from nose to chin, something silken just covered her loins. But that was all, and men – many men – jostled around her, a special cruelty in their anonymous, masked regard. And then he saw something else, something that had him moving at last, swiftly away from the wall. He saw her breasts. And he knew them.
The Blooding of Jack Absolute Page 15
