Henry, Henry

by Brian Willems

  Henry edged his way closer to the gallows, not to get a better look at the convict, for Juliana had not been brought out yet, but to hear two men discussing the apprehension of the “garment-mad” woman. The gist of their conversation ran as follows: they got her and they got her good. When the King’s guard burst into her room Juliana was found with the gardener. They had young Charles up on the table and both were pretending to admire him in all his courtly finery, although the young boy was actually dressed in a dish towel.

  AFTER HENRY FINISHED his duties in the courtyard he was returned to his cell rather than back to the stage. Although he had not seen the Captain during the whole day, later that evening he received a letter along with a short, fat candle and a wick which was just about long enough to read the letter twice through before the darkness of his cell returned:

  Henry,

  After seeing what can only be called the absolutely appalling murder of the Connolly woman today I have arrived at the conclusion that what has come to be known amongst you boys as “services,” but amongst the clergy and administration as “corrective measures,” needs to be radically transmodified. To put it in brief: I will have nothing more to do with this cloth-hoarding bastard of a king. I think you, as the first servicing two-timer, will agree. Still, seeing a continuing need for corrective measures, which your intransigencies (note — plural!) require, I mean not to end the “services” altogether but (and here comes the explanation of my admittedly curious coinage — transmodify) I will transform our services from cleaning up after murders to the much more humane task of diseased-assisting, meaning that we will help assuage the horrors of the plague down in Excester, my hometown. Or at least you will. As for the second half of my new term, I also intend to modify your duties. You will assist the syndic whose duty it is to check the inhabitants’ residencies. Hopefully you will survive the danger involved, for I need all of my voices in working order for the Christmas concert. (Yes, I am offering that as an outside terminus to your stay. You have probably forgotten that the holiday season approaches, down in your dark prison!). I guess I cannot expect you to react to this news with joy, or relief, or even with a sense of duty to get the job done. But still I think I can expect something from you yet, dear Henry. Even with all the trouble you bring.

  To tell you the whole story, my thinking on the subject began today in the courtyard. When I saw Connolly hanged, and I did watch (I did not, like Orpheus, turn away), I thought not only of her but of her boy, young Charles, and I said to myself (although I cannot promise you that, at times, along with the best of us, I do not borrow my thoughts from the words of our great poets, which, after all, is an honour on both sides), that all of us carry the fruit of death inside us: the child a fruit much smaller than the adult, a greener sort but still planted strong, where it grows and reddens and, if left alone long enough, eventually sours, putrefies, and goes back to the earth, invisible and nutrifying. And I could see, Henry, in the instant that body fell (as you know the death is almost instantaneous, most say it is the shock that does them in, making all that hacking the king is requesting bloody unnecessary, and untidy), the boy’s fruit flashed from green to red to black to earth all in one moment. His life was over. And I knew, right then I tell you, that I had to make a choice. No longer to clean up after death but to work to conserve life. That is what you will do, starting Tuesday (today is Saturday, in case you’ve forgotten).

  You may, and rightfully so, be wondering why I am writing you. Why not just dispatch you, without a word? The answer is both simple and it is not. I have tried presenting my case for a change to the “services” to the one I am bound by both duty and heart (my Evelyn, your Mademoiselle Cooke) but, if I may be frank, she has been keeping my company less and less, and when she does appear she keeps herself at such a distance that she either claims no interest in my theories (for example, she cannot see need for both trans and modify in my coinage, see above), or she mocks me by repeating what I say but at a higher pitch, much like a cornet imitating a trumpet — oh do not get me started on that subject! So, as I have in you a captive audience, and seeing in you a kindred, sensitive artistic soul, I am trusting you with these words. This letter. I would also like to take the liberty to inform you that your sartorial wealth has been distributed amongst the other boys, who seem to be enjoying it rightly.

  I hope to be able to continue this conversation soon. I now must be off. Choir practice awaits.

  Safe journey,

  Your Captain Cooke

  THE MAN IN QUESTION introduced himself as Mr P. A. Austen, Oxfordshire. He was rather heavy-set with a balding crown sporting a tuft of light blonde weeds attempting to cross over. He had unshaven jowls but a clean shirt and tie, no hat and a trench coat. He did little to protect the book under his arm from the light drizzle falling except to have it half-tucked under his right arm, just as he had done inside the library. Meredith put her history in her bag.

  Mr Austen’s Vauxhall took them to the hospital in under ten minutes. Mr Austen was well informed of the route. “It’s like a botany lesson, with all the branching streets,” he said. Meredith agreed out of politeness and was not quite sure how she had been swept up and into Mr Austen’s vehicle, except that she knew it was drizzling, and that fact alone could free her from any sort of self-criticism. As long as she did not probe her motivations too deeply, which she often did not.

  Mrs Purcell’s otherwise unoccupied double-room was slightly damp. A sun-faded pea-green curtain was drawn to hide the rain. Mr Austen sat down next to Mrs Purcell’s head, on her right side, and indicated the seat on the other side of the bed with an open, wrinkled palm spread out above the sick woman’s chest.

  “How nice of you to visit, and to bring a friend!” said Mrs Purcell.

  “Good afternoon Ma’am. Yes, I have someone with me this afternoon, I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? My goodness, no.”

  “This is Miss Meredith Haps-Mills. She has a keen interest in Americana, perhaps almost as much as you.”

  “Pleased to meet you. That should make for some interesting moments, then.”

  “Pleased to meet you. He’s exaggerating, I’m afraid,” said Meredith.

  “Nonsense,” said Mr Austen, “I found her in the American history section. She’s checked out Hansler’s book on the locomotive. He was a member of the Church of England,” he said, but then seemed to wish he could swallow his words.

  “The Outline or Modern Railways?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not really sure,” said Meredith.

  “The Outline,” said Mr Austen.

  “That’s fine, dear,” said Mrs Purcell. Turning back to Mr Austen, she asked, “Did you find it?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Eventually.”

  “Excellent. I would like to hear as much as possible before the coma sets in.”

  “Oh, dear Mrs Purcell,” said Mr Austen.

  “Coma?” asked Meredith.

  “Well, if you had a coma coming wouldn’t you desire to hear, at least once in your life, one of the greatest works of American literature? Did you know Schubert requested it at his death?”

  “No, I didn’t. Wait, yes, I did. I do. Mr Austen told me in the library.”

  “Then you are completely up to speed, despite your scanty knowledge of Hansler. Now, which one of you is going to read? We should get a move on. Not much time, isn’t that right Mr Austen?”

  “Yes, you are right,” said Mr Austen, turning a bit red and opening The Last of the Mohicans to the beginning. Then he handed it across Mrs Purcell’s body to Meredith who, startled at the gesture, took it without comment and started reading before Mrs Purcell’s coma-bound gaze.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, Henry?”

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course you may, dear.” He did. “Mr Austen, Miss, Miss.”

  “Haps-Mills.”

  “This is Henry. Henry Purcell. Henry, say hello.”

  “Hello everybody.”
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br />   “Henry Purcell,” said Meredith, and smiled, “like the composer. What a great name for such a sweet boy. I was just reading your mother a story, about Indians, in fact about the last of the Mohicans.”

  “His father named him after the composer. I believe Mr Austen knows more about that than I do,” said Mrs Purcell, motioning Henry closer, away from Meredith. “He’s even been inspired to begin some biographical sketches on the original Henry Purcell, isn’t that right?” Mr Austen looked down at his chest proudly. Mrs Purcell suddenly scowled and then turned toward her son. “Now baby, do you remember what mommy is going to have? What mommy is waiting for?”

  “A coma?” said Henry. Meredith gently shut the book on her right index finger.

  “And what kind of… Come here,” she patted the bed in front of Meredith. Henry came around the bed, hands in his navy-blue cotton shorts, and sat down in between Meredith and his mother, without extracting his hands. “That’s nice. And what kind of coma is mommy going to have?”

  Henry looked around at Mr Austen and Meredith, as if waiting for them to come up with the answer in his place. The rain came down behind the curtains. With no answer coming from either of the two guests in the room, Henry settled back and said with authority, “We don’t know yet mommy, but there are four possibilities.”

  “There are?” asked an incredulous Mr Austen. Henry looked up as if Mr Austen were an idiot, and raised his eyebrows.

  “And they are, Henry?” prompted his mother.

  “Um, classic, alert, carus and,” Henry puckered his lips and clenched his fists inside his pockets. “And, the French one.”

  “Which one is that now?” asked his mother.

  “I’m sorry mother, I can’t remember,” he said, his eyes widening with honesty.

  “That’s ok, Henry. Isn’t it Mr Austen? Miss Haps-Mills? Yes, it is ok for a boy, now and then, to forget what he’s taught. We can’t be forcing perfection on them all the time, otherwise they won’t grow up to love and cherish the memory of their mommies and daddies, will they?”

  “I think that’s quite right,” said Mr Austen. “Very fair.”

  “Probably so,” said Meredith, thinking of her list, now nearly creased into illegibility but still taken with her everywhere.

  Henry ran out of the room with his hands still in his pockets and searched for his friend Martino.

  THE TRAP CARRYING HENRY had another six hours to go before reaching Excester when it passed a carriage, overturned and horseless at the side of the road. The driver stopped and shouted his inquiry of whether any assistance was needed. However, apparently it was not, as the trap rapidly departed amid verbose cursing from the driver, who was shaking his fist in the direction of the accident. Due to the incident being outside Henry’s field of vision, he was unable to see what was going on, at least until the trap moved forward, removing a tree from between Henry’s field of vision and the carriage. Then he saw, seated on the grass and surrounded by food, Evelyn and William laughing, apparently unharmed. They looked as if they had just been thrown into their picnic by a wild wind.

  Henry’s trap jolted on and its sole passenger became lost in angry reverie. What were they doing, so open in their affections? And why were they so far from London? Together? The more Henry thought about it, the more he was sure that he knew exactly what those overthrown lovers were saying back there on the grass, word for word. He imagined:

  “Oh, pass me some wine, my dear Willie!”

  “Of course, my dirty little dove.”

  “Oh, you have not called me that for, oh, I don’t know, minutes!“

  “Yes, it might help if we had a little wine.”

  “Wine, yes! I forgot. Now where’s a servant when you most need one? Sir, the bottles!”

  “Yes,” William must be giggling at the farce of pretending a servant was in attendance, “hurry up, man!”

  Evelyn, mimicking the pouring of wine, “Now there you go, my warm loaf.”

  “Warm loaf? Where did you come up with that? Or should I even ask?”

  “It must be the wine, because I do not know myself!”

  “And servant — I could get used to this, you know — servant could you please bring the Madame and I a blanket?”

  “Madame is a terrible name, my dear, but at least you can think of a pet name.”

  “What do you mean, me? Whoever could not come up with a name for you, my sunfire, my bottle-nose, my Oriental goddess! Was it the unimaginative footman, perhaps? Or one of your other lowlife admirers?”

  “Oh you are so naughty, my knight, come and pierce me.”

  And of course they laughed, after each and every breath, while Henry headed toward a plague-riddled town under lock and key. The only moment of solace he had was imagining that they were just a bit too giddy before the gallows.

  “YOU KNOW, A LONG TIME AGO, in Greece, there was an old woman, no one knew her name or anything, and she had some books she wanted to sell. It’s hard to say why she wanted to sell them exactly, but she did. Maybe her husband had died in the Samnite war that was going on, I don’t know, but she was left alone and she was old. So, let’s just say that she had these books and a need for money, for a lot of money. Because the price she asked for the books was out of this world. What did she need the money for? Who knows? Maybe to marry off one of her daughters, but who would have marriageable daughters at her age? She was old, we know that, but we don’t know her name. So she wasn’t well known or anything, just an old woman. Some people think she was from the countryside, but we really don’t know. Anyway, she had these big fat books she wanted to sell and she needed a lot of money. Now another question you might ask is where did she get these books? That’s a good question, too. For she was old, not very well known, and in need of money. So how did she come across some books that might be of value in the first place? One thinks, if one is honest with one’s self, which we are, aren’t we Henry?, we think she probably stole them. Otherwise the facts don’t really add up. But look at the evidence: old woman, asking too much for some books. She’s from out of town. Sounds like stealing to me. Or maybe she just ‘found’ them or something. But when people just ‘find’ things it usually means that they stole them, or didn’t leave them for the person who lost them to come back and find them, which is pretty much the same thing, at least according to Kant, the philosopher Kant, and he should know, because he spent a lot of time thinking about these things. But the point of this story is that she took these books to the King, King Tarquinius Superbus. Yes, that’s his real name, Superbus. You can look it up. In fact, I would encourage you to do so, since as a researcher myself I would like to sow the seed of research in others, especially in the young. Ok, ok, so how did this woman from nowhere without even a god-forsaken name get in touch with the King, especially King Superbus? I don’t know, Henry. Sometimes, and this is another lesson, you just have to admit that you don’t know. But she met the King, somehow, we have it on good authority, at least as much authority as we can claim for classical authors, which, if you get down to it, is probably an ok amount, but don’t go crazy over it. It is always easy to pick at someone’s faults rather than to concentrate on understanding their strong points. But let’s just stick to the story, ok? This old woman took these books to this King and asked for a lot of money for them and he said no. Oh, and there were nine books, did I say that already? No? Well nine. So then, the King said no way, that’s way too much money you’re asking there, so the old woman took three of the books and she burned them. Poof. I guess there was a fire nearby, and a big one, for if you have ever tried to burn a book, not that I have, but I have tried to burn a lot of paper at once, although I can’t remember exactly when at the moment. But say a whole week’s worth of newspapers or something. It really takes a lot of shifting and poking to get all the paper to burn. You have to be careful it’s not just the edges that burn, leaving the insides intact. Especially not if you are burning a book as a threat. Not that I would recommend it. In fact, I wou
ld say don’t burn books at all. But she does, this old woman, and they are completely burnt, down to the last page. I guess they waited around a bit for it to happen, or it was such a huge fire there, in the King’s hall or whatever, maybe a bonfire or something, that they went up like that, poof! But there were three books that were burned, remember. So it must have been poof poof POOF! Then the old woman asked for the same amount of money as the first time, but now for the six remaining books. The King, I imagine, I mean, this is pure conjecture on my part, looked at her a little strangely and said, well, now it’s the same price for six books as it was for nine, so, well, no thanks. You know what happened next, then, don’t you? I mean, you can guess. The old woman took three more books and burned those too, probably in the same successful and rapid way that the first three were consumed. It was then that Superbus got all worried, for there were only three left, and the woman didn’t even have to ask again for the original price, because the King gave it to her right away. Then he took the three remaining books, put them in a temple, created a council eventually called the quindecemviri sacris faciundis, but don’t worry about that, it’s not really important. Anyway, Superbus created this council to consult the books as if they were oracles from the gods about how to deal with politics and whatnot. I guess they contained some kind of information about Rome. But that’s not the point. Because the important question really is, well actually, what kind of lesson do you think you can get out of that, Henry? What can you take away from such a wisdom-filled story?”

  “Um…”

  “A lesson, I mean, about the ladies.”

  “I’m not really sure…”

  “Take your mother and Meredith, for instance. You know what I did? When your mum asked me for that Last of the Mohicans book, you know what I did? I told her, oh, it would be so hard to find. I had no idea where I could get a hold of it. Whether the book would be available in English. I said that no one looks at the old classics nowadays, even though I knew it would be at the lending library. It had to be. I know my libraries, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be checked out, because, well, some of those things I said were true, like that no one reads the classics nowadays. That’s another lesson. Always tell as much truth in a lie as you can.”