I, Libertine

by Theodore Sturgeon

  But she continued, suddenly and strongly, as if there had been no pause, “… to see how high one might fly. Just that.” She sighed, long and longingly. “Especially to see how high—I might fly. … D’ye know the dowry the Gunning sisters brought from Ireland with them, Lance? Beauty. Just beauty. Yet one was a duchess, one is now a duchess twice over and will mother dukes, I’ll warrant. To have a lot, or even a little, and to reach the heights—how wonderful. To have nothing, and reach the heights, and then on the heights, to build a tall something … ah!”

  She smiled into herself, with her eyes closed, and said: “If I’ve a secret at all, it isn’t counter to ambition, like yours, and it isn’t a place or a state of being, like yours; it’s only a great happy question: how high is high?”

  Suddenly she sat up, leaned over him, and framed his face with her two strong hands. “Lance, wouldst help us?”

  She meant, he realized, none of the wishes and dreams they had traded. He harked back to what they had been speaking of earlier, and a slow frown appeared on his forehead. What she read in it he could not know, but she said immediately, “Miss Chudleigh desires only to marry her Duke. She would be grateful to whoever helped her.”

  “Grateful?” It was said in a way which meant “How grateful?”

  She cast a significant glance around his shabby dwelling. “Have you thought where you might live after your … duties here in Bermondsey are discharged? There’s a little house, a holding of the Duke of Kingston, right on the edge of Holborn, which needs someone to keep it warm. It is convenient to every brilliant gathering in London—most pleasant for one who might have entry to all of them, ay, and the Court as well.”

  His eyes glowed. “There is great merit in Miss Chudleigh’s case.”

  She smiled. “Decency and justice.”

  “The very things which mean most to me. …Very well, I shall discuss this matter carefully with my good friend the barrister’s boy, and we shall see what can be done to right the wrongs done your kind patroness.”

  “Ah. Lance, I knew you would!”

  “Of course, my limitations just now … certain military duties which I may not discuss …”

  “I quite understand. What Miss Chudleigh requires is simply—knowledge. Only to know how to proceed.”

  “And perhaps some assistance in the process.”

  “If you would be so generous.” Again they smiled at one another. And with a single lithe motion she was away and across the room, to where her garments were neatly folded on a chair. She put them on quickly and without self-consciousness as she spoke, while he watched enchanted.

  “Miss Chudleigh and I are with Lady Blanton for the time being,” she said briskly. “Lady Blanton likes you, and you may be sure of a welcome there. I think Miss Chudleigh would prefer not to discuss these painful matters with anyone, the poor dear, so you shall simply have to deal through me.”

  “Tsk.”

  “Miss Chudleigh will be so pleased, Captain!”

  “I shall do my best to please her. Who told you where to find me?”

  She was taken aback by the suddenness of the question and the hard flat tone in which it was thrust at her. “Lance!”

  “No one knew I was here. No one!”

  “No one ever need know.”

  “You won’t tell me?”

  “Ah, does it matter?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I think it does.”

  “Well,” she said, “I’ll not tell you.” She came to him and put her hands on his shoulders. “Your secrets are quite safe with me, and I’ve given you secrets in exchange. Mayn’t we trust one another?”

  He saw that this was true. Certain things about himself might do him no service if circulated in the drawing rooms of the Old City; she, on the other hand, was equally at his mercy.

  “As you wish, then.”

  “Lance, you’re angry!”

  “Perhaps. But then, it matters little; I can serve you just as well angry. … Wait. I’ll slip down and fetch a carriage.”

  “My carriage is waiting.”

  “I saw none.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll go down with you, then.”

  She glanced at a gold watch pinned to her bodice. “As you like.” She looked once around the room, once half-anxiously at him, and then preceded him through the door. He handed her down the dark staircase and across the court. Just by the archway outside stood a two-wheeled spring trap of the new style so admired by the hansom-drivers, cursed as they were by carriages swung from leather. Its driver sat silent with his cloak up and his brim down, only a lump of darkness.

  “Good-by …” she whispered. She stepped up to the trap, but he held her back.

  “I don’t know your given name, Miss Axelrood!”

  She laughed softly. “So you don’t. But then, we hardly know one another yet, and it would be unseemly for you to use it.” She bent very close and whispered in his ear, “Go back and contemplate thy couch, friend, and think of what the future may bring.” And she sprang into the trap, and was gone.

  Thoughtfully, he listened to the light swift pounding until it faded into the sleeping sounds of the city, and the sounds of his own breathing, and the creak above him of the Dirty Beast. Then he shook his bewildered head and climbed the stairs to his chamber.

  He closed the door behind him and stood musing, contemplating the couch as instructed. And there in the light of the stub of his candle lay the stolen escutcheon, the crest of the Courtenays. He crossed to it and picked it up. Suddenly he laughed. He thought of how, at Blanton House, she had balanced like a bird on the step of his carriage. What had her deft busy hands been at while she spoke to him there in the dark? Yes, she could have reached the ’scutcheon and unbuckled it … and was it to prove something to him? Was it to give substance to that last strange remark of hers, and had she planned the clever theft after planning the remark? Did all things follow her plans, even to the arrival of her spring trap exactly on time to take her away? Could she plan, to the minute, the length of time it would take her to subjugate a man and set him to her bidding?

  She could and she had, and with this carven gift she had proved it to him. And this, he thought, with very mixed feelings, must be what old Piggott meant when he warned him against involvement with a … a natural aptitude at a high degree of training.

  But for all its mysteries, the situation contained one great comfort for him: this was no shower of sovereigns from a smiling sky. Miss Axelrood’s favors were a pro quo which demanded, in its own coin, a quid from him. He would pay it, then; and should he shake the tree while picking the promised fruit, let it be their worry and not his; they had let him into their orchard, and they knew where he was.

  Lance Courtenay (or Lancaster Higger-Piggott) laughed and went to bed.

  3.

  THE NIGHT HAD NOT been cool, and the morning was most unseasonable; Lance woke to an unwonted drone of flies and an almost visible reek from the stables directly below. His nostrils twitched and he cursed, and opened his eyes. He closed them again immediately. Daylight, even the dimmest and earliest, is no friend to such cramped, corroded, noisome closets as this one. A single candle had been enough and more than enough for it.

  At the thought of the candle he looked at it, spent and spilled in its leaden holder, and then his gaze slid to the tip-crazy chair, half-turned from the littered table, just as she had left it, coming to him. He rolled out of bed and approached it, hearing the drums again faintly. He turned up the mirror, for a mad moment thinking he might see her face in it again, the coppered shadows in the hollows of her shoulders. He laughed then, perhaps at himself, yet a little fondly … well, he laughed fondly at himself, and began to dress.

  He dressed carefully in dun-colored hose and heavy dull shoes with one small pewter buckle each. His linen was clean and very white, but decently frayed; his tuck-waisted coat not too snug and slightly wrinkled. He folded his linen of the night before and the gorgeous waistcoat, and with th
e burnished silver-buckled shoes, the rich hose and coat, put them in the chest. It was camphorwood, carefully laid in a shell of battered oak; like himself, it looked like a thousand others outside, and concealed its virtues. He locked its two heavy locks with two separate keys from his ring, and then glanced around the room a disgusted once. It could now be opened to chambermaid and prying innkeeper, and be damned to them; they might keep anything they could move.

  He took up the Courtenay coach escutcheon, wagged his head admiringly, and set it carefully in the large inside pocket of his coat. He put on the slouched hat, taking care to knock out the last signs of its ever having been tricorned and cockaded, took up his rough thornwood stick, and descended the stairs.

  Grove, the innkeeper, stood in the court, by his very presence drawing the flies from the stable. “Eh, good morrow, Master Lanky!”

  Lance gave him the briefest of nods, but Grove was not dismissed. “A word, sir …”

  The “sir” was not lost on Lance, who was quite used to—and satisfied with—Grove’s usual form of address, which was no form at all. “Be quick, then,” he said coldly, sensing an advantage.

  “I’ve little to say, sir, though ’tis with all my ’eart. … It might be I’ve been a mite ’ard on ye, sir, one time or another, for yer reckoning an’ that. … I wanted ye to know I meant nowt; a ninn’s a pesty thing to deal with an keeps a body ’alf barmy, ye might say. So for anythin’ I might’ve said in times past, I beg yer ’umble pardon.”

  “How much did she give you, Grove, a gold sovereign?” Lance snapped.

  Grove cringed, which was a sizable feat for a man of his girth. “I didn’t want ye angry, sir, an’ I ’ad to be sure. I’d not let a stranger into yer rooms, not for—”

  “Not for less than a shilling,” said Lance acidly. He raised the ferrule of his stick and tapped Grove on the bristly point of his chin. “It’s all right this time, but see to it that whatever she bribed you with has purchased your deafness—” rap!—“blindness—” rap!—“and a total loss of memory.”

  “Oh, ay, sir, that she did. That she ’as. The very thing I was about to say, sir.” He stumbled back from the stick and went blinking and wheezing, ogling and giggling, into the shadows of the stable.

  Old swine, Lance thought. I wonder just how much she did give him.

  He strode smartly down to Abbey Street and along it not quite to the Jamaica Road, keeping close to the center kennel all the way; for though the unusual weather was raising a proper summer flavor from this waterway, it was safer there than by the house fronts and their overhanging first storeys. He came at last to the dangling, legless, tailless horse which marked the sadlery, and turned into the alehouse next to it.

  “Ah there, Mister ’igger-Piggott!”

  “Good morrow, Mother Starch.” He did not, as did most people, respond to her wide warm smile and ardent little voice; he had learned years ago that her features relaxed into this delighted expression and her diction followed suit, regardless of her feelings. “And ’ow,” she beamed, “is poor dear Mr. Barrowbridge today?”

  “I haven’t been up yet,” Lance said. “Do you have a loaf for us this morning?”

  “That I ’ave, and my sister’s ’usband rode up from Hither Green last night and brought me plover’s eggs, if you’d like some.”

  “I would that. Four, if you have them.”

  “You can ’ave six. They’re right soothing for poor dear Mr. Barrowbridge’s aff-flick-shun. Fair rottin’ aw’y ’e is. My uncle Neddy ’ad the sime complaint. When their voices go like that they’re done for, you may depend,” she said happily. “Next thing to look for is a ’orrid great ’ole openin’ up on side of the neck ’ere,” she went on, touching her throat. “After that ’e might drag on for a year or more but it’s all over with ’im.” She gave him a luminous smile. “You ’ave tea?”

  “Thank you, yes,” said Lance, taking some comfort in the fact that Uncle Neddy had not been carried off by leprosy, “but I’ll have some fresh water from your cistern. … Is Scuttle about?”

  “Scut-tle!” she yodeled, the two syllables an octave apart. From the shadows of the alehouse came a frightened scrabbling as of startled rodents, and an undersized eight-year-old boy appeared. “ ’Ere’s that nice Mister ’igger-Piggott wantin’ a word wi’ ye.”

  The boy looked at the nice Mister Higger-Piggott without enthusiasm. Lance sat down on a heel and crossed his forearms on the other extended knee, attempting to look friendly. The boy backed away. Lance said, “Have you been up to the offices yet, Scuttle?”

  “No, sir, but I’ll ’urry an’—”

  “Did you know there was a new gypsy caravan in Southwark Park?”

  “Please, sir, yus, but I shan’t—”

  “Would you run down and see them if you could?”

  “Ah, sir I’d never—”

  “With a silver threepence you wouldn’t?”

  Scuttle stared at him and the threepenny bit, dumbfounded. The young barrister’s clerk had not the reputation of extending money, not even to tease. Lance smiled glassily. “We’ll not be needing you at all today. We have to be very quiet and work hard and not see anyone. Here, take this, lad, and push off.”

  “Coo,” breathed the child.

  “Na,” said Mother Starch chidingly. “A clout i’ the ear’d be better. Gi’ us the thr’p’nce to keep for ye, boy.”

  “Fat chance,” said Scuttle courteously, and disappeared into Abbey Street.

  “Ah well,” said Mother Starch cheerfully, “Mayhap the gypsies’ll steal him.” She hummed as she took up the eggs carefully in an end of rough sacking and handed him the twisted end. “I’ll step up and empty your slops, later on.”

  “Thank you no,” said Lance. “What I can’t do, can wait. Just put these things on Mr. Barrowbridge’s chit.”

  “Very well. Take care,” she admonished gaily, “You’re lookin’ very unslept this morning. You’ll be needin’ a nice physic. My dead niece Julia, she ’ad that look about ’er.”

  Lance took the loaf and the wine bottle full of water, his eggs and his stick, and navigated the doorway. You’re physic enough, he said, but not aloud. He edged his way up the dark creaking stairway next to the saddle shop and set his burdens down while he manipulated the key.

  The establishment of Simon Barrowbridge, Barrister, consisted primarily of a large room with a half-partition. On the entrance side of this were a stool, a settle, and two wooden chairs, with a small writing shelf built to the partition. On the far side was a monstrous desk, a clerk’s table and high stool, and one straight chair “for defendants,” Barrowbridge used to say, the assumption being that plaintiffs would be strong enough to stand. One large window pierced the wall directly behind the desk, and it had been literally years before Lance had realized its function in keeping Barrowbridge’s leonine, pockmarked head in mighty silhouette while light flooded the faces of his interlocutors.

  Books covered the walls from floor to ceiling behind the partition, except for one narrow doorway at the rear, which was framed by them. From the other side of this doorway, as Lance entered and turned back for his supplies, came a series of animal chokes, wheezes, gasps, whistles, grunts and sneezes, all of which he ignored.

  He closed the door and quietly stepped to the writing shelf, where he took a sheet of foolscap and a heavy marking lead, and lettered busily for a moment: NO CONSULTATIONS TODAY and under it, in flowing script, Simon Barrowbridge. This he took outside and pinned at the stair landing where the dim glow from an airhole would fall on it, and returned to the office. He locked the door as silently as the clumsy iron would permit, and started the fire which had been laid, courtesy milord Scuttle, the evening before. He filled the kettle and put it on, looked with distaste at the grey drippings in the iron skillet, shrugged and put it on too, to receive the eggs. All the while the gurglings, sniffings, and half-aspirated whistlings continued from the rear door.

  At last he went to it and flung it open. “G
ood morning, Mr. Barrowbridge, sir.”

  The room was small, the bed huge. The man who lay on it, curled and dangerous like a wounded bear, glowered at him. “Damn it, Piggy, didn’t you hear me? Or are you trying not to? Slide me yon chamber like a good chap.”

  The convenience in question stood in a closed cabinet in an ancient sideboard by the door. Lance did not even glance in its direction. “Another warm day, sir,” he said obsequiously.

  The great hulk shifted ominously. “I made a rather simple request, Higger-Piggott.” Barrowbridge’s voice was not a voice; it was a rasping whisper, edgy, painful to hear and doubtless painful to produce.

  Lance said, “Mother Starch had some plover’s eggs. I’ll have them for you directly, sir.”

  Barrowbridge thrashed and heaved until he was sitting up. “By gad, sir, I’ll get it myself, then,” and reached for his chair. His chair was a heavy and richly carved structure, probably one of the few really fine things the old barrister now owned. When placed behind his enormous desk in the other room, it appeared to be an ordinary chair. It was not. It was equipped with four-inch oaken wheels, the two rear ones skilfully mounted on casters. With these and a heavy walking-stick to scull with, the old man could get around these two rooms with surprising deftness. When he reached for the chair this time, however, it darted away from his grasp and fled to Lance, who had hooked the rung between the front legs with his toe. With an urbane smile he pulled the chair through the door and put it neatly in place behind the desk.

  The kettle had begun to sing. Lance ignored the whispered roars from the other room as if they were so much distant surf, and went to find the teapot. As he bent to knock out the old leaves he glanced back and saw the old man taking his heavy cudgel from its resting place by the small window, and laying it along the outside edge of the bed, just covered by the edge of his greasy old comforter.

  Lance rinsed out the pot from the water bottle and then filled it with boiling water from the kettle. He put on the lid and covered it with a cosy. “Last night was a great success, sir,” he called conversationally. “I think Lady Blanton was pleased with me; she’s asked me back. Beauclerk was there, but left early for that dashed club of his; what a man of that finish sees in a grubby lot of hacks and actors, Garrick and Goldsmith and that lot, I can’t imagine.” He lifted the edge of the tea-cosy and touched the pot briefly with his fingertips. “How can I ever repay you for all you’ve done?” he asked warmly. “All night long I lay and thought of you, sir, and my great debt to you. You took me from the muck and grime of the stables; you taught me to speak; you taught me law. You have wangled invitations and introductions for me that I never could have had—that I never would have thought you could manage; yet you’ve done it. How can I repay you—how could I even begin?”